What Forever Means
by ladyofdarkstar
Summary: Megatron is forced to come to terms with himself when the one human he loves--in his own twistedly dark and horrible way--begins to die. He has a choice to make: let her die or ask Prime and the Autobots for help. But will Prime help? Reviews are love! :D
1. Chapter 1 Megatron

A/N: This was meant to be a one-shot story. I don't know if it will continue, or if it should be left as it stands. I guess I will leave that up to those that review! As always, I do not own Transformers in any way, shape or form. I only claim my OC's. This story was inspired by the song "Forever" by VNV Nation. The lyrics are in italics.

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For all his power, all the strength of eons of knowledge and existence, he had finally met one enemy he could not defeat. She lay broken, dying… the red fluid of life that carried the soul of the humans leaking from her mouth and ears. He was not a medic to know the internal workings of his own kind, and had never spared a bit of processor space for the anatomy of humans.

He regretted that now. Regretted it so much that his circuits burned with it.

"Disgusting humans!" he bellowed over the radio in his rage, in his fear. "Fragile imperfect flesh things. So easy to break, to hurt. So quick to kill even your own kind. Tell me, I demand it. Tell me why you mean so much to me? What is this sickness you have infected me with? ANSWER!"

The woman strapped into his cockpit did not answer. One tiny drop of crimson blood escaped the bandage hap-hazardly wrapped around her chest, falling down against his circuits. Again he bellowed in his terror, fighting not to kick into mach speed, knowing at least that that would kill her for certain.

"Laura," he pleaded, the sound so soft as to almost be inaudible. "Laura, do not die."

_I don't believe in the existence of mercy's guiding hand…  
__Not with all that I have witnessed, I cannot understand.  
__Forever burdened with the knowledge that I could have been so much more  
__When the truth is hard to suffer, I knew this all before._

_There is no comfort in faith, the heavens still will fall.  
__A thousand towers rise before me and I cannot climb them all.  
__There is no kind of joy in this; there is no time that it can heal,  
__When emptiness enshadows bliss, there is nothing left to feel._

There was only once chance to save her, save this human he had taken as a pet… this human who had come to mean so much more. And as much as it infuriated him, twisted his processors to admit it, he needed the Autobot called Ratchet. The medic had extensive experience with the humans, experience Megatron had witnessed with his own optics. At the time he had thought it the height of stupidity for the Autobot to stop in the middle of a battle and tend to a wounded human.

Now it was his only hope.

His Laura… his pet human with the golden hair, with eyes that reminded him so much of the femme he had once thought to love long ago before the war. That femme had been dead for millennia now, one of the first casualties of the war that had destroyed their world. Her name was forgotten, purposefully blanked out of his memory banks. But her face, her eyes… He had thought them long forgotten, too.

Until he had found Laura. Until he had taken her for himself, kept her in a beautiful cage for his own amusement. The more time he spent with her, the more the memories resurfaced… and with them the memories of love. How he hated for that, hated her for infecting him with this disease of compassion. But he would not destroy her. On the contrary, he took care of her all the more.

"You are mine, human. MINE!" he growled again. "I have not given you permission to offline. I HAVE NOT!"

_I have not abandoned hope, though I know there's nothing more.  
__Tired and alone, you forget what you hoped for.  
_

_I will walk this ground forever and stand guard against your name.  
__I will give all I can offer, I will shoulder all the blame.  
__I am sentry to you now, all your hopes and all your dreams.  
__I will hold you to the light, that's what forever means._

That one drop of blood became another and another, a steady trickle of the precious liquid. Each falling drop was another second closer to her death, and he wasn't sure what he would do if he lost her.

It was this war that was taking her away, he knew. Those foolishly idealistic Autobots and this thrice-damned war! If they would only surrender, if Prime would only take his rightful place his second-in-command, then such events like these would never happen. Why couldn't Optimus see that it was his destiny? Brothers they were, and as such they would find their fates together. It was Megatron's fate to rule. He had known it from the day of his birth.

It was Optimus's destiny to advise. If they could work together, the entire universe would unfold at their feet. Entire worlds would be spared… after they swore fealty to him, of course. But it would be a minor matter to bring them in line. What with Prime's ability to reason and negotiate and his own will to dominate, nothing could stop them.

And beloved ones like Laura would not die. All his power, his victories mattered little in the face of death. The one enemy he could not conquer.

"PRIME!" He screamed, landing before the Autobot leader.

Ironhide, Bumblebee, Prowl, Wheeljack and a host of other simpering, lackwitted Autobots stood arrayed around their leader, cannons and guns and swords all powered and ready. And Prime stood with them like a shield to the weak, as if gloating that now his brother had to come to him on bended knee and beg.

"Megatron," Optimus answered, voice slightly muffled through his battle mask. "We are here under a flag of truce—"

"I care not about your truce," he hissed, hating the mech before him. Hating him so much because Optimus could not see the truth of the universe as he could. Hating him, because some part of his spark remembered him as a brother. "Take the human from me. If she dies, I blame you."

Ratchet slowly moved forward, carefully as if expecting a sneak attack. Megatron seethed in silence, counting another falling drop of blood in the time it took Ratchet to cross over to him. When the medic saw the human, Megatron could almost feel the shifting of processors in the other, the wariness replaced with worry and determination. Laura was lifted from his grasp.

_I was never what you wanted, I could never, never please.  
__I swallowed all our sorrow in the midst of my disease.  
__All my fortunes, all my gains, all the battles I have won…  
__Now collapsing like the rain, I stand alone, beneath the sun…_

_Take some solace in these words, take notice of this place.  
__Hollow whispers that they are, like the wind upon my face.  
__Sing softly in my ear and look at me with wonder.  
__I will try to ease your fear as the darkness pulls you under._

He could not stop himself from transforming the moment Laura was free. One hand reached outward of its own accord, eyes blazing with his fear, his anger, his disgust in himself that he could regret. Regret not standing with his brother, regret not being able to save his human pet. Regret this whole war… So many regrets piled on top of each other, threatening to crush the spark right out of his chest.

"Do it. I want you to," Ironhide spat, thinking that he reached out to harm Ratchet. "Touch him. Give me a reason to fire."

"Ironhide," Prime snapped, his optics never leaving Megatron.

Did he know, Megatron had to wonder. Did he understand the pain, the fear of knowing that very soon he could be without his Laura? It galled him, frustrated him to know that the other could see such blatant weakness as this need in him. Had Optimus been a Decepticon, he would have blown Megatron to bits for showing such weakness.

His brother only stood there, something akin to compassion blazing in his blue optics. Megatron wanted to blast that look from his face, smash him into a million parts. This was his pain. This was private, a hollow burning that only one human could fill in him.

He reached forward again, and Ratchet tensed. One finger, so delicately gentle, traced over a lock of golden hair. "Laura," he whispered, not caring who heard. "Laura, you will survive. Human, listen to me. You will survive, and I will come back for you. You are mine, and deep inside you know this. You will LIVE!"

He transformed before any other word could be spoken, leaving a group of very startled Autobots behind him. All except for Optimus, who stared after his brother with a thoughtful expression in his optics. Megatron cared not. He had given Laura over to those that had the best chance of saving her life. All that mattered was that she survived. His Laura, his light.

_I will walk this ground forever and stand guard against your name.  
__I will give all I can offer, I will shoulder all the blame.  
__I am sentry to you now, all your hopes and all your dreams.  
__I will hold you to the light, that's what forever means._


	2. Chapter 2 Laura

A/N: Thank you all so much for those who have reviewed, read, and liked this story. It was supposed to be a one-shot-deal, but the little plot bunny that spawned it decided that there was more to tell. I have to say that this will be a darker story, and for those that do not like introspection and dark realizations, you probably don't want to read this one anymore. For those that would like to continue on, I greatly welcome you and your suggestions/comments/concerns/and enjoyment.

This is going to be a bit odd, as each chapter is inspired by a different song. The lyrics for the song are in italics in the chapter. This chapter, here, was inspired by "Rocket Collecting" by Milla. I also do not own this song or any of the songs used in these chapters. As always, this is strictly for fun and entertainment.

And while we are on the topic of disclaimers... I do not own Transformers or am making any money off of this. This is purely for entertainment purposes. :D

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There was comfort in the darkness, in the lack of sensation, the lack of auditory stimulation…the lack of coherent thought. Laura reveled in her unconcious state, in her non-awareness, curled upon herself in the blackness of limbo. There was no pain here, no fear or worry, no warring of emotions as she tried to hold onto her sanity.

And _his_ voice was absent from her thoughts. Had she been awake and aware, she would have laughed until she cried.

In her silence, in the safe place in her mind between awareness and dreaming, she would not say _his_ name. She couldn't, wouldn't bring herself to do it. Not here, not in the first true stillness she had felt in over two years. For now, in this tiny dark place, she was her own person again. She was not a pet, not a play-thing, and not… not _cherished_ by _him_. She did not have to hear _his_ plans, listen to the booming and grinding of _his_ rage-filled growls, that strange alien language bouncing off the walls of her prison.

Bouncing off the walls of her crumbling sanity.

_Rocket collecting dust  
__Hidden from all memory  
__Bathed in outrage and rust  
__Waiting for you and me  
__To own it_

_Watch you as you douse the ceiling  
__Light up all the evil dreams  
__Till they ignite screaming into the night  
__And we run away clean_

Voices skittered along the void in her mind, threatening to pierce her walls of solitude. Wordless voices she did not recognize and couldn't understand. She whimpered, curling further in on herself. She didn't want to wake up yet, to face the world around her. It didn't matter one bit that she knew one of the voices wasn't _his. _It mattered even less than that that the voices were trying to awaken her. She wasn't going to face that cage again.

She wasn't ready to face any of the cages. Not the one with the opulent bed as soft as a cloud, the one filled with all kinds of clothing from all over the world and anything else she could ever want. And not the cage in _his _chest, the one right next to _his _spark, no matter how warm and inviting and … safe… it had felt.

Revulsion filled her, filled the limbo of her mind and threatened to tear away the sweet non-existence. Of all the cages, she had loathed and loved that one in unison. Next to _his _spark, feeling the vibrating, near-rhythmic pulsing of _his_ life. Feeling the warmth of a life she could never understand infusing and sustaining her. And through it all, _his_ voice constantly wrapped around her like velvet and shards of glass at the same time.

_I wish I was half electronic  
__The last shreds of skin are in the sweet sunlight  
__And I've turned into this smiling, snarling monster  
__As I watch the walls descend  
__As I watch the walls descend like stars_

The voices were getting closer, her fragile bubble of joy shrinking with each passing minute. She could make out a few of the words now, hear her name and the word "safe" being repeated over and over again. Inside her head, she howled in her terror. There wasn't any place safe in the world from _him_. He owned her, had told her over and over again that she belonged to _him_, with _him_… was a part of _him_.

She. Was. A. Part. Of. _HIM!_

Laura thrashed in the darkness, trying to escape that maddening statement. But there was no where to run, not from the thoughts of her own mind, her own heart. _His_ fingers extended in the darkness, steel hands so cold, so unbelievably hard, wrapped around her with gentleness. Touched her hair, stroked away her tears… traced over the collar _he_, _himself_, had put around her throat. A collar fashioned of his own body. On it rested two symbols of his language: The Decepticon symbol and the symbol of _his_ own name.

The others, the ones that served _him_, had gaped in horror and incredible jealousy that _he_ had put _his_name on her. On a pathetic organic fleshling.

She didn't understand, couldn't comprehend, what that action had meant. And all the while he had called her a name in his own language, a name she could not remember, could not even begin to grasp. But that name meant something to him, to the others that served him. It inspired fear, awe and… loathing. Yes, loathing was the right word. It was written all over the expressions of Barricade, of that insidious Dr. Scalpel, of Soundwave.

Only the one called Starscream had looked on with deadly silence, a very menacing and yet contemplative expression in his frightening eyes. Out of them all, Starscream was the one that provided some kind of care for her, aside from _him._

_Half submerged  
__I reach your island at night  
__Washed up tangled on these stones  
__A gorgeous wreck crashing  
__To lay here for the next 600 years_

_The storm will play out there for miles on every side  
__So tell me who's got the dominoes  
__But you'll have to leave your lightning  
__Outside_

Tremors wracked her body, limbs jerking as if electricity coursed through her veins instead of blood. The fragile void in her mind cracked and tore, glimpses of reality flashing in garish colors through the fissures. People surrounded her, humans in white lab coats and the grey-green of surgery scrubs. She vaguely recognized the defibrillator paddles in the hands of one of them, realizing that they were trying to shock her heart back into action.

Realizing that the sweet, blessed darkness of non-existence was nothing more than the gateway to death.

And looming over them all was the yellow and black mech called Ratchet.

She knew him, knew his name and his face as well as she knew her own. _He_ had forced her to memorize them on the terrifying flight to… to where ever _he _had taken her. Did it honestly matter where she was? It should, some part of her mind whispered. It should matter very much. Her heart refused that call to action, instead choosing to weep behind the shredded fragments of her mental darkness.

Because _his_ instructions were coming to the forefront of her mind like bubbles floating through a mental soup of muck and grime. _He_ had ordered her to survive. And despite her best efforts, her body continued to listen to _his_ word, _his_ will overriding her own.

And maybe… quite possibly… she wanted to live, too.

And maybe… quite possibly… there was more to remember than the fear and the pain. Maybe that was the reason why she hid in the darkness instead of grasping the offered light. Maybe that was why she continued to cling to _his_ whispered orders, _his_ words echoing with each and every beat of her heart.

A heartbeat that yearned all on its own for the answering pulse of _his_ spark.

_I wish I was half electronic  
__The last shreds of skin are in the sweet sunlight  
__And I've turned into this smiling, snarling monster  
__As I watch the walls descend  
__As I watch the walls descend like stars…_


	3. Chapter 3 Ratchet

A/N: This one got really complicated, and I apologize that it took me so long to write. Trying to figure out the science behind what I'm trying to write, to give it some kind of plausible possibility, was a lot harder than I thought. I always try for some semblance of realism—however small it may be ::grins::—in the fiction. I've rewritten this chapter so many times trying for that. I apologize if it isn't as good as the others.

The next one will better, I promise.

As always, I do not own Transformers or the song "Lose You." The song is by Pete Yorn. You all know who owns Transformers, and that I'm not trying to make any money from this. Just for fun…

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If ever he had been impressed with the seamless way humans and Autobots could blend their talents together, it was now.

The thought raced across his processors, a fleeting contemplation that Ratchet automatically tucked away for later deliberation. He did not have the time to marvel at how his race and that of the humans could be so similar in its dedications. Human warriors could function on the same honor programs as could the mechs he had stood with in battle for eons. And now he was learning that human doctors shared the same core of values as he:

That all life—whether on his side of the war or the other—was precious.

Humans scurried around in organized chaos, blending in perfect unison with his actions. They dodged and weaved, somehow knowing to step out of his path without him having to give direction. Likewise, he backed away when the more experienced human medics needed to repair an organic fluid line—which they called arteries, he reminded himself—or another.

His head whipped around as a monitor started to wail, its alarm klaxon like the heralding of Death. "The human's spark cha—heart—is failing."

"Move," cried Dr. Elle Davehurst, her face hidden behind her scrub mask. Her gloved hands were red with blood, and once more the skilled surgeon reached into the patient's chest. "We've got no choice this time. We have to cut open the heart itself. Someone get the bypass machine in here pronto."

Ratchet located the item in question, lifting it from one side of the O.R. to the other. He put the machine together, connecting tubes and hoses, automatically scanning to ensure the equipment was sterile and without flaws. "Ready," he responded.

In moments all was in place, the machine was turned on, and the woman's vital signs stabilized.

"Oh my god," one of the nurses whispered.

_I'm taking a ride off to one side  
__It is a persona thing  
__Where?  
__When I can't stand up  
__In this cage  
__I'm not regretting  
__I don't need a better thing  
__I'd settle for less  
__It's another thing for me  
__I just have to wander through this world  
__Alone._

Somehow that one whisper, that combination of words, cut through the chatter of the busy O.R. Hands immediately paused in mid motion, heads turning with a kind of dull horror, as if the mind did not want to know the source of those words but had little choice in the matter. They looked at the triage nurse… and then down at where she pointed.

"Ratchet!" Dr. Elle called, her usual smoothly modulated voice cracking with a touch of fear. "Ratchet, what is that?"

Ratchet was scanning even before the human had finished uttering his name. The medic's optics narrowed, focusing on the by-pass machine. Fluid ran through the cleaning and oxygenating portions of the device as it should… only the fluid was not the deep strong red of oxygen-rich blood. It was a dark, purple-tinged viscous liquid. He crossed the room in one large step.

"It's blood, but it's not completely blood," he muttered as if to himself, engaging a secondary scan. Whatever it was that he found, it had nurses and doctors crying out in alarm as he stepped back quickly. "Impossible. It's blood, but it's been fused with energon."

Elle handed off the clamps and scalpel in her hands to her assistant, moving quickly to inspect the machine. "I thought you said our species weren't compatible."

"They're not," he said, using the small sampling tube to collect a vial of the blood mixture. "I think the evidence speaks for itself." He nodded once in Laura's direction.

"Then how is this possible? And why does she have energon in her blood?"

"I did not say_ in_ her blood. I said fused _with _her blood," The medic corrected quickly, his tone indicating that his processors had moved on from this conversation already and was focused intently on the sample in his hands. "Keep the girl alive. I will return."

"You got it," Elle turned back to the woman on the table, reaching into her open chest cavity. "Let's get to work on this heart, folks. By-pass alone isn't going to keep her alive for long."

_Stop before you fall  
__Into the hole that I have dug here  
__Rest even as you  
__Are starting to feel the way I used to  
__I don't need a better thing  
__(Just to sound confused)  
__Don't talk about everyone  
__I am not amused by you_

There was no precedent for what was happening to the human, no reference in his databanks to explain how the red blood cells accepted the energon like it was oxygen. Granted, human red blood cells carried oxygen to the organic tissues making up her body. But those cells received the oxygen from the lungs. As far as he knew, there was no gaseous form of energon. She couldn't have breathed it in and had it react like oxygen.

And why the red blood cells? Wouldn't it make more sense for the white blood cells—the cells programmed to defend organic tissues from foreign contamination—to react with the energon in her system? He shook his head, narrowing his optics in pure frustration. He had too many questions on his hands and he was running out of time to find answers. For all he knew, the girl's organic systems could be in the middle of rewriting themselves.

"No wonder the human is dying," he muttered. "What in the Pit did Megatron think he was doing?"

He ran the blood through another analysis, switching the light spectrums and speed on the centrifuge machine. The blood sped faster and faster, separating into its component parts. The light poured through, illuminating sections not even his optics could have seen without it. Cells tore themselves apart, broken pieces merging with each other and tearing themselves apart again.

He narrowed his scan, watching as a smaller, weaker cell full of energon tore itself apart like all the others… it's pieces trying to attach to the stronger cells uncontaminated by the alien energy. His optics widened as the tiny pieces tore through the stronger blood cells, destroying and infecting it before moving on to the next.

"The cells are searching for something, something they are trying to merge with," he murmured aloud, watching the rapid destruction of almost every clean cell in the sample. The mixture began to die, to darken and congeal in that moment. "And when they can't find it, they reject the host cell. Effectively destroying it and moving on. But what is it that they want?"

On impulse, he opened up a port on one finger. Holding it over the sample, he dropped one tiny nannite into the mix. Instantly shattered blood cells raced towards the microscopic bit of technology like magnets, energon sensing energon. The nannite reacted as it should—if it were inside a Cybertronian. Repairs began almost immediately, shredded cells glowing a bright purple as the nannite wove them into something new… and yet something old at the same time.

The nannite followed the programmed genetic code of the cell, the energon sealing closed the organic material almost as fast as the little thing put the pieces together. What emerged was an oval shaped cell, tinier than it's original. But Ratchet was willing to bet that the new cells were twice as strong as their previous incarnation. The ramifications of the discovery flew through his main processor, leaving feelings of dread in their wake.

He had his answers. In that moment, he had to make a decision.

_I don't need a better thing  
__I'd settle for less  
__It's another thing for me  
__I just have to wander through this world  
__Alone._

_I'm gonna lose you,  
__Yeah, I'm gonna lose you  
__If I'm gonna lose you_

"Put the human's heart back in its chamber," Ratchet order, striding back into the O.R.

Elle spared half a glance for him. "That's going to have to wait a minute or five, Ratchet. I'm not finished rebuilding it yet."

"I will handle that, Elle. Put it back into her chest. Now."

The snap of command in his tone had Elle's head whipping around, anger turning her chocolate brown eyes nearly black. "The patient's life is about to end. We're loosing her and putting a half sliced and diced heart into her chest isn't going to buy her any time."

Ratchet held aloft a container of some kind, his optics burning brighter than she'd ever seen before. "Trust me, Elle. This is the only way."

"Fine," Elle said stiffly, obviously disagreeing with his decision. "Let the record show my objection."

"Noted," Ratchet said dryly, watching the human place the disassembled heart back into the woman's chest. He opened the container, observing what looked like a tiny shower of silver glitter float gently into her body.

Laura's reaction was anything but gentle.

_I'm gonna lose you  
__Yeah I'm gonna lose you  
__If I'm gonna lose you  
__I'll lose you now for good_


	4. Chapter 4 Optimus Prime

A/N: Taking some liberties here. I am not sure about the history between Elita-1 and Optimus. Several sources say that she's dead. Others say that she is very much alive and well. So I blended the two. I hope it didn't turn out too horrible. ::cringes:: Once more I apologize if I get anything wrong. This story and it's style is a big challenge for me, and I struggle a lot with it. I hope it comes out entertaining in the end. :) Again, this is a dark story. Do not read if you don't like realizations, introspections, and the like.

I do not own Transformers or the song "Fear" by Sarah McLachlin.

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They felt the blast from deep inside their sparks. It rocked them up in unison onto the tips of foot plating, bowed spinal support structures backward. Their heads tipped backward, massive arms extending outward as if beseeching the sky. And though they stood in opposite corners of the world, three Cybertronians mirrored that exact pose.

Ultra Magnus. Optimus Prime. Megatron.

The blast echoed through their sparks, ricocheted down the bond that sparked them and enveloped each in utter sorrow. Confusion and anger quickly followed from Ultra Magnus, fury at having to know what this meant before it was his time. Megatron's howl echoed throughout their minds. Only Optimus was silent as he stood on the Diego Garcia base.

The giant mech fell forward on hands and knees, one hand pressing against his chest plating, optics snapped shut. Lennox called out in alarm, screaming for Ratchet. The human's voice was less than a buzz in his receptors in that moment. No, all he could hear was a horrible silence. All he could sense was the memory of this feeling, of the emptiness that radiated from his brother and down through their bond.

Optimus knew this pain, knew it on an intimate level that haunted his every thought. He had felt it once, when Elita-1 had been ripped from his existence, killed by his brother's followers. And now… now the darker part of his spark took satisfaction in knowing that somewhere on the planet Megatron mirrored his exact pose.

_Morning smiles  
__Like the face of a newborn child  
__Innocent unknowing  
__Winter's end  
__Promises of a long lost friend  
__Speaks to me of comfort_

_But I fear  
__I have nothing to give  
__I have so much to lose  
__Here in this lonely place  
__Tangled up in our embrace  
__There's nothing I'd like  
__Better than to fall_

_But I fear I have nothing to give_

The sweetness of revenge faded almost before it began, and Optimus found himself reaching through the brother bond of their sparks. No sentient should know this kind of pain, not even the worst. He had taken a vow the moment Elita-1 had been restored to him, made a promise that he would never again take pleasure in killing. For kill he had. The deaths of so many of his own kind rested on his head.

Decepticons, whether they were in battle with him or blissfully unaware in recharge, had died in droves in repayment for the destruction of his sparkmate. Optimus had become the very thing he hated, coming so dangerously close to corrupting the Matrix of Leadership with the poison of his rage. Only the bonds he shared with others had saved him, had been enough to reach through the pain and pull out the last tangles of Optimus's true self. Ironhide, Ratchet, Bumblebee, Jazz… an inner circle of salvation.

An inner circle that Megatron did not possess.

And there was no All-Spark for the humans as there had been for their kind. There was no mystical item in which Megatron could present the body of his beloved and watch as life poured into her once again. He would not know the spark-saving joy that Optimus held tight in his being, watching Elita's optics flare to life again, to feel her arms around him as he bowed his head in reverence.

As he vowed from that point on to only serve the causes of others and never his own selfish desires.

"_Brother_," he sent through their bond. "_Brother, I am truly sorry. All that could have been done, has been done."_

Megatron's response was barely a whisper. _"I. blame. you." _

_Wind in time  
__Rapes the flower trembling  
__On the vine  
__Nothing yields to shelter it  
__From above  
__They say temptation will destroy our love  
__The never ending hunger_

_But I fear  
__I have nothing to give  
__I have so much to lose  
__Here in this lonely place  
__Tangled up in our embrace  
__There's nothing I'd like  
__Better than to fall_

_But I fear I have nothing to give_

Ironhide's hands gripped his right arm, Bumblebee on his left. He could feel them pressing in his processors with private comm. chats. Through twin bonds of duty and friendship, he felt their concern, their fear. Optimus could not bring himself to rise from his kneeling pose, mourning anew for the actions of his brother. For the choices he had been forced to make, for his own mistakes in dealing with him.

"_If I could give her back to you, know that I would."_

Rage was his only answer, cold, black, bitter rage like a wind inside their minds that Optimus couldn't shut away. It burned it was so cold, mixed as it was with raw grief and emptiness. Ultra Magnus was on the other side of that fetid wind, hurling insults at Megatron, lost in this pain as surely as the other was. Ultra Magnus had not mated before, did not know the true substance of that kind of bond, of what it could do to a mech to lose it.

But now he was forced to live with the consequences of losing it, feeling the echo from Megatron. And unlike Optimus, Megatron would never shield their younger sibling from that pain. He would feed it like a sickening disease, pump the echo of the pain through their sparkbonds until all were eaten up with the bitterness… or until they turned off their ability to feel anything at all.

He wasn't sure which fate was worse.

Slowly he rose to his feet, wordlessly turning so that Ironhide and Bumblebee had to either let go of the huge mech or dangle like charm bracelets from his arms. He strode into the med bay, through the doors of the O.R. Again the human's voices, screaming at him about the sterile necessity of human operating rooms and the like, were nothing more than a buzz in his receptors.

He knelt beside the cooling body of the woman named Laura, noting the flawless quality of her skin, an almost inhuman glow to her body. "He truly loves you, Laura. You may not understand, but know that you are loved. You cannot let your spark dim."

"Optimus," Ratchet said gently. "She's gone. We could not save her. Her body was infused with energon, and the damage was too much for even the nannites to repair. Her skin, her outer shell, repaired within seconds. It was her heart, her spark, which dimmed. We don't know why."

"Then she will share mine," he said softly, adding a silent "_Brother, she will share mine."_ through the bond.

And the others watched in mixed horror and fascination as Optimus picked up the human, opened his spark chamber, and placed her lifeless hand into the bright glow…

_But I fear  
__I have nothing to give  
__I have so much to lose  
__Here in this lonely place  
__Tangled up in our embrace  
__There's nothing I'd like  
__Better than to fall_


	5. Chapter 5 Laura

A/N: This is a very, very dark story. So dark, in fact, that I am toying with the idea of bumping it to an M rating later on. I know I have mentioned this dark aspect before, but the more that I write it, the darker it becomes. One can't truly write a love story about someone as twisted as Megatron without it being dark—not if one wants to stay true to the character, anyway. I try to stay true to the canon material as possible in my stories.

Again, I will state that this is a dark story. If you don't like dark fics, please don't continue on with us. But those of you who want to explore a little, then I invite you to stay. Just remember, for every dark cloud, there is a brighter one on the horizon. Life isn't always about the victories and the defeats one goes through, but the struggle about how one reached that ending. ;)

As ever, I do not own Transformers, blah blah blah… Please don't sue. Likewise, I do not own "Something I can Never Have." That wonderfully dark and passionate song is owned by Nine Inch Nails. I would never hope/want to take that away. Again, please don't sue. I'm not making any money from this. It's just for fun.

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The pain was excruciating, a silvery fire that raced beneath her skin and enveloped bone and sinew and dead muscle alike. Laura wanted to scream, and inwardly she did, raging from more than the physical sensations eating away at her soul. It wasn't fair, this renewing of her life. It just wasn't fair. She was dead, finally and utterly dead, and through no means of her own this time.

She had escaped the nightmare of her life, the horror that was her existence as _his_ love, and the curse of her own fear. For deep inside, she had always feared what the next life would hold. All the years of private catholic schooling as a child had imprinted into her psyche the notion of a fiery eternity for all who killed themselves.

Death had been an escape she had longed for ever since her real father had died… and her mother had married the Monster.

And then she had finally died, the prayers from her ten-year-old lips nearly two decades earlier answered at long last… and she was free. Freed at last from abuse and neglect, from alien injections forced upon her body by a mad scientist determined to do his master's will. Freed at last from her own jumbled feelings towards their joint _Master_. Freed from… everything.

But now something had changed, something had gone wrong. And she could feel _them _crawling through her body, stirring sluggish bloodstreams to life, forcing the fused human/alien fluid to fuel her body once more. It hurt so badly, like billions upon billions of fire ants everywhere underneath the skin, biting and stabbing with needle-like, microscopic appendages. Taking over her body, her soul, her brain in rivulets.

Bringing her back to an unwanted, terrifying life.

Laura convulsed violently as the alien ants found her cerebral cortex. And, like from the moment of her first injections at the behest of the _Master_, the alien intrusions found her fleshly tissues inferior and unacceptable… and in need of an upgrade. Thankfully, the iron in her blood and other minerals in her organs, combined with the injected energon mixture, provided the right building blocks for compatible replacements.

She would live. And inwardly, she mourned that fact.

But something had gone wrong, something indefinable by science and medicine, by any word ever written or ever created by breath. The alien ants within her could not explain it, relaying useless data to a brain that was not equipped to understand their signals. Organs began to shut down once more, blood vessels slowing and laying dormant as crimson-purple life refused to flow. Outwardly, her shell had repaired itself to perfection, made better that it had ever been during her lifetime. The silvery nannite-like-ants made certain of that.

Inwardly, the spark that was Laura started to dim and fade.

Inwardly, she felt _him_, the _Master_, howl in his rage and sorrow. And unbelievably, a small part of her reached out to _him_, soothed _him_ as best as it could.

_I still recall the taste of your tears  
__Echoing your voice  
__Just like the ringing in my ears  
__My favorite dreams of you still wash ashore  
__Scraping through my head  
_'_Til I don't want to sleep anymore_

_You make this all go away  
__You make this all go away  
__I'm down to just one thing  
__And I'm starting to scare myself  
__You make this all go away  
__You make it all go away  
__I just want something  
__I just want something I can never have_

Inexplicably, irrationally, the last images her tortured mind pulled up were of her first meeting with _him._ The city was falling apart around them, buildings shedding their glass and block exteriors like so much soughed off skin. Concrete chunks hammered into scorched pavement, impact tremors from collapsing store-fronts as well as robotic footsteps rocked her until she thought the vibrations would burst her heart.

Through the drugs, though, she felt nothing. Knew nothing. And watched with unfocused eyes.

The body landed at her feet with a shower of sparks, steel screaming as it slid against cracked asphalt. It was one of them, one of the giant robot-things that seemed to be dead-set on killing each other and everyone and everything else in their path. Or at least, it was half of one. It was missing its lower half, circuits and support structures hanging out like human innards, blue sparks and liquids pouring like blood.

She watched with detached numbness as the head turned to stare at her, blue optics like stars, fizzling before her eyes. It tried to say something, reaching a hand out to her. Pain was written all over its metal face, blue-white liquid pouring from what should have been a spine.

She did not feel pity for it, for this dying alien. She felt jealousy. Because it was going to die soon, and she had to go on living in the nightmare.

It was a morbid kind of hope that made her reach out to him (for it looked to be a male by her estimation), to let his twitching iron fingers wrap around her body. She, in turn, wrapped her arms around his hand, secretly hoping that his death throws would force him to clench his fist. Her eyes locked onto his, saw some kind of light blossom there. Maybe he took comfort in knowing that he would not die alone. Maybe he mistook her tears as of sorrow for him and not self-pity that she was not joining him in death.

But then that light when out of his eyes, and his hand relaxed.

"PRIME!" she heard a monstrous roar bellow.

She looked up, covered in dirt and debris and the cooling fluids of the dying alien. That was how _he_ saw her, staring up at _his_ eyes, those glowing orbs like twin pits of hellfire. Awe filled her, her soul wanting to launch out of her mouth and be devoured by _him_. There was Death in all its monstrous glory. There was the answer to her horrible life.

_He _looked down at her, and something glittered in those ruby depths. And she knew right then that _he_ would find her again. She knew, somehow, some way, that _he_ would pursue her to the ends of the earth. Somehow, in some way, in that millisecond of contact, _he_ had understood.

But he leapt then at the one called Prime. And the howl that left her mouth was of pure sorrow.

It wasn't fair.

_You always were the one to show me how  
__Back then I couldn't do the things  
__That I can do now  
__This thing is slowly taking me apart  
__Grey would be the color  
__If I had a heart_

_Come on and tell me!_

_You make this all go away  
__You make this all go away  
__I'm down to just one thing  
__And I'm starting to scare myself  
__You make this all go away  
__You make it all go away  
__I just want something  
__I just want something I can never have_

The others were dead, the other druggies that had made up her little pack, crushed or torn by the falling debris of the battle. Laura had never bothered to learn their names, nor had they bothered to learn hers. They were bound together only through mutual need, through an animalistic rite of fear. Their bodies warmed each other when the nights were cruelly cold. Their eyes watched every street corner as each one scored their poison of choice from the dealers. And they protected each other when the pushers came and wanted more than money as payment.

Sometimes they succeeded. Other times they watched in fear as one of their own paid mortifying costs for the right to get high. Only Laura had ever watched with longing, hoping one day that she would be chosen and killed. It was the only way to stop the nightmares, the memories that started when she was barely a woman, when her mother's new husband had wanted more than just parental rights to his stepdaughter.

It left her twisted and broken inside. And quivering with a twisted lust for someone to understand just how much pain she was in.

She'd found it when _he'd _stared at her from atop that building. Everything had gone silent. The nightmares, the memories, the… _everything_. _He_ was the greatest high she had ever scored, a silence so pure that breaking eye contact had been like a physical punch in the gut. _He_ could do what the drugs could not. _He_ could kill the never-ending thoughts in her mind.

And then, _he_, too, died.

The one called Prime plucked a piece of the All-Spark from _his _chest, and then he turned away. _Megatron _had been the name of her beloved, the title of those ruby orbs of silence. The one called Prime took the one called Jazz—the one that had died holding her too-thin body—into his arms. Speaking with honor of the fallen Jazz, ignoring her beloved silence-giver. It had seemed so wrong, so heart-breakingly wrong.

It wasn't fair.

But this Prime kept on speaking, and no one noticed the dirty and silent Laura picking her way through the rubble to lay her hand against one of those forever-darkened ruby eyes. Or so it had appeared at the time. It wasn't until the military men pushed her off of Megatron, treating her like a stunned, shocked survivor of the incident, that she realized someone else had seen her reverence for the fallen Decepticon leader.

And, like all others before him—be they human or alien—he had absolutely misinterpreted her actions.

Starscream found her days later, plucking her from the ruins of her drug den. She had been high on a bad mix of heroine and vicoden, unable to move nevertheless scream as the Seeker gripped her with a clawed hand. His words were lost to her deadened ears, her hazy thoughts. Only days later, after the one called Scalpel had flushed and detoxed her body, did she truly realize what the word hell meant.

It. Wasn't. FAIR!

_In this place  
__It seems like such a shame  
__Though it all looks different now  
__I know it's still the same  
__Everywhere I look you're all I see  
__Just a fading fucking reminder  
__Of who I used to be  
__Come on and tell me!_

_You make this all go away  
__You make this all go away  
__I'm down to just one thing  
__And I'm starting to scare myself  
__You make this all go away  
__You make it all go away  
__I just want something  
__I just want something I can never have_

Bright, white light flooded her vision, chasing away the last images of Starscream and Scalpel, of the moment when Megatron returned and claimed her from the Seeker. Again her body convulsed, her soul being pulled back from the sweet oblivion of death. She fought against the light, against the voices that called to her, clawing onto the diminishing darkness with no avail. She knew the voices, one that she had heard on the day she met her _Master,_ the other belonging to the _Master, himself._

One was a vocal call she heard with her ears, the other a twisty razor sharp thought that she felt with her heart.

"Laura," they called, voices merging and overlapping, echoing against one another and blending until they were one sound. "Laura, come back to me. Do not leave me in the darkness alone. Laura, come be my light…"

The darkness evaporated, and that first inhalation of air was the most painful thing she had ever done in her life. Again, it bowed her back, her scream soundless it was so full of that much pain. Ratchet and the others reached for her body, demanding that Optimus put her back on the table. The Prime refused, backing away with a growl. One hand sheltered her close to his chest, the warm pulse of his spark burning against her skin. The other hand manifested an energon sword.

The others backed away quickly at Ratchet's order, the medic putting himself between his Prime and the human doctors. "Optimus," he said slowly. "Optimus, I was afraid of this. Think, my friend. This isn't your sparkbond you feel, it's his. Remember yourself! You opened the brotherbond to Megatron. Push back against that bond right now. You are not your brother. She is not your femme."

"Mine," he hissed, optics gone cherry red, a panel opening in his chest, right near his spark.

Instinct made her dive for the panel, the outright need to be pressed against _his_ spark chamber worse than a need for oxygen. The panel closed and she waited for the familiar pain to begin. But something was wrong, horribly wrong. No internal pressure slammed her against the spark casing, no liquid metal flowed over her body, merging and encapsulating her until she was indistinguishable from any other piece of _him_.

And there was no stinging pain as the hair-thin wire pierced through her back and into her heart, sending minuscule pulses of _his_ spark into her body, keeping her alive. No, something was horribly, terribly wrong. Prime must have felt it, too.

The panel opened in the blink of an eye, the sword vanishing as she was dumped into his cupped hands once more. Cool blue optics stared down at her, sorrow so thick in them that she almost choked on it. "I'm sorry," he rumbled. "Laura, I am so sorry."

She whispered the only thing that she could. "It's not fair."

"It never is," he soothed, setting her down on the operating table once more.

_I just want something  
__I just want something I can never have…_


	6. Chapter 6 Megatron

A/N: I cannot stress enough that this is a very dark story. While I will not get into graphic details in this story, I will state that the theme is definitely worth the "M" rating. Those of you looking for a good love story with redemption and a happy ending may not want to read this story. I do not plan on making this a death fic, and I do see the main characters finding a way to be together. But please, please do not flame me when the 'happily ever after' does not fit any theme or type of story posted on this site.

For those of you who have chosen to stick around, thank you. :D Thank you for the reviews, the private messages, and for making this story a favorite. I hope to update sooner next time. IT depends on how often I can drag my muse into the darker parts of my talent. :-) Please enjoy, for we all desire to peek into the shadows every so often and every once in a while we like to see the bad guy win. Hence, this fic.

Special shout out to NeonGhost8 for providing the song for this fic. I hope it comes out to your satisfaction. It truly is an amazing song. :D I am so terribly sorry that it took so long to write. Please forgive me? ::looks cute and hopeful::

As always, I do not own Transformers, nor am I planning to make any money off of this. I do not own "Forty Six and Two," either. That song is lovely crafted by the band "Tool." I totally recommend checking them out. They rule!

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She lived.

The thought froze him, terrified and infuriated him as much as it made him reach out in silent plea to Primus, to a figure he had not spoken with for a time beyond measure. But the prayers were there, boiling free of the subroutines he'd buried them beneath and bursting through his processors like a supernova. His spark sank into those prayers, momentarily forgetting the rage, the vendetta, the elemental and primal emotions that drove him to his actions.

No, for a moment, one precious second in the stream of eternity, all the ambitions and desires of his innermost self were forgotten. For that one impossible flicker of time, Megatron's red optics faded to blue. He bowed his head, fell to one knee, and gave thanks.

She lived. His Laura lived.

And then the fear filled him.

_My shadow's shedding skin and  
__I've been picking scabs again.  
__I'm down  
__Digging through my old muscles__Looking for a clue  
__I've been crawling on my belly  
__Clearing out what could've been.  
__I've been wallowing in my own confused  
__And insecure delusions  
__For a piece to cross me over  
__Or a word to guide me in.  
__I wanna feel the changes coming down.  
__I wanna know that I've been hiding in_

He was up and in flight before his processors registered the movement, transforming quickly. His spark pulsed furiously in his chest, and it wasn't long before the fear turned into rage once more. How dare she live, this putrid human! How dare she steal from him this beautiful vendetta, the sickly poison of wrath that was like nectar to him. She should have died, and he should have found her body with the Autobots. Prime should have been weakened with grief and guilt, knowing due to that insipid bond they shared how much this human had meant to him.

And then Megatron would have had the perfect reason to strike, the perfect chance to spread dissent through the ranks of the Autobots. How deliciously destructive it would have been to splinter the loyalty of what remained of Optimus's forces, to strip the Prime of everything. Then gloat in his brother's face for vorns upon vorns, slowly killing the other piece by miniscule piece and thusly winning the war.

His lovely Laura would have been the martyr to his cause. And when he rebuilt this putrid human planet into a new Cybertron, he would have statues erected of his beloved in every city. His Laura… the only human that understood the method behind his desires.

The only being in the galaxy that had managed to never disappoint him.

And yet, with all the rage that flooded his spark, that filled his being with a purpose to conquer and destroy, it could not burry that tiny bit of relief that she still lived. That infinitesimal knowledge grew with each passing second, threatening to wash away the rage again, to leave him in a state he had never known until he had found her.

"I DO NOT NEED YOU, HUMAN!"

The words cracked against the sky like lightning, and the howl that quickly followed rumbled in his wake like thunder. And even with that awesome display of power, of sheer force of malice, he could not make himself believe the words. He needed her. Needed this stupid fleshling like he needed his own spark. It was weakness. It was a source of constant strength. It was an emotional rush that left him powerless in its wake and filled with a purpose all at the same time.

It changed him. And for someone that had known nothing but stagnant rage for more than a million earth years, it was beyond frightening.

_My shadow. My shadow.  
__Change is coming through my shadow  
__My shadow's shedding skin  
__I've been picking my scabs again_

_I've been crawling on my belly  
__Clearing out what could've been  
__I've been wallowing in my chaotic  
__And insecure delusions.  
__I wanna feel the change consume me  
__Feel the outside turning in  
__I wanna feel the metamorphosis and  
__Cleansing I've endured within_

He had no idea where he was going.

No, that wasn't exactly true. He knew where he was going. It was what he was going to do when he got there that puzzled and frightened him. Every logical circuit in his systems told him to head straight for the human that caused him so much grief and pain, and to blast her to atoms without hesitation. If he could do so while she was within Prime's hands at the time, so much the better. Taking a shot at Optimus would be a soothing balm to the damage in his spark.

Thudercracker and Starscream were fast to get out of his way, both jets blasting data packets at him in rapid succession. Inquiries, they were, questions about where he was going in such a hurry and what battle was about to take place. For surely if their leader was rushing off in an excited state, there must be something to gain from it. There must be some kind of fight about to occur, and the two wanted in as much as any Decepticon.

He ignored them, sending one answer, and one only: **DO. NOT. FOLLOW.**

Neither Seeker needed to be warned further. No one dared to disobey Megatron since this incident with his pet human had taken place. His irritation had reached new heights, and many a Decepticon had found himself in pieces after asking a seemingly innocent question. Many of their kind had gone off in secret, searching for a human that looked like their master's pet, bringing him female after female in an attempt to replace the one that had supposedly died.

Those fools were still picking pieces of those females from their gears. Megatron had not taken the attempt to placate him well. The screams of both human and Cybertonian alike had been enough to incite nightmares.

Because each of those human females may have looked like his Laura, but none of them had her eyes. None of them trembled before him, not out of fear, but out of adoration of being in his presence. None of them had her touch, her delicate fingers to polish his armor. None of them smelled as she had, a mix of fear and love and anticipation. And none of them thanked him each time he had made them bleed.

They were not his Laura. And he needed her at his side, as disgusting as it was to admit.

He _needed_ her.

_My shadow. My shadow.  
__Change is coming  
__Now is my time.  
__Listen to my muscle memory.  
__Contemplate what I've been clinging to.  
__Forty-six and two ahead of me._

_I choose to live and to  
__Grow, take and give and to  
__Cry, kill and die and to  
__Be paranoid and to  
__Lie, hate and fear and to  
__Do what it takes to move through_

He was not going to kill her, and he knew it.

He knew it the moment he had returned to life from that abhorred ocean grave and Starscream had presented her to him as a gift. What he had expected to find in that golden cage was one Samuel James Witwicky, so it was with a snarl of disgust that he stared at the malnourished and trembling woman. She had been cleansed and scrubbed, dressed in the white dress human females used in mating ceremonies. Precious gems were in her hair and around her wrists.

Gracing her slender throat was a collar of gold and rubies, a long length of gold chain extending from the collar. He had almost yanked on the golden leash until the human's neck had snapped, preferring to use the metal for something other than decorating a fleshbag. But she had looked up at him in that moment, those eyes staring into his. Dead eyes, he remembered thinking, eyes that were filled with an almost feral intelligence and the knowledge that there was always something worse waiting to devour the weak.

It was a very odd and very curious look to find in the eyes of a human.

He remembered her then, staring at him from the rubble of Mission City, drenched in the fluids of that thrice-damned Jazz. Something in his spark tilted at that memory, and instead of yanking on the leash, he had gently tugged it until she stumbled from the cage and into his open palm. Her fear was palpable, her trembling amusing, but it was the anticipation in her eyes that drew him. She wanted this moment, wanted the feeling of helpless… and perhaps wanted to die at his hand.

Very odd and very curious indeed.

The woman bowed her head then, prostrating herself as much as the silly dress would allow. He felt her lips pressing against his palm, a sign of submission, he knew. Amused, he had taken her and the cage to his private quarters, intending to put her through impossible tasks until she failed, and then he would kill her. To his surprise, she survived them all… and came back asking for more. This woman, this Laura, had proved a very pleasant distraction.

And in that, he made the ultimate mistake in letting her live.

_I choose to live and to  
__Lie, kill and give and to  
__Die, learn and love and to  
__Do what it takes to step through._

_See my shadow changing.  
__Stretching up and over me.  
__Soften this old armor  
__Hoping I can clear the way  
__By stepping through my shadow,  
__Coming out the other side  
__Step into the shadow  
__Forty-six and two are just ahead of me._

She was a part of him now, and he could not deny that any longer. Like a virus, a parasite, she fed on parts of his emotions he had long thought destroyed. His spark felt empty, the chamber light and off-balance without her pressed to it. He needed the taste of her fear, the feel of her tears against the metal of his face plates when he would whisper the horrors he had planned for her.

She would whisper words of adoration and submission in return.

He cursed the weakness of her flesh body.

He cursed the weakness of his spark for wanting her.

And more than anything, he cursed the fate that led him to this planet and to his Laura.

"Laura," he whispered to himself. "I hate you. I need you."

_See my shadow changing.  
__Stretching up and over me.  
__Soften this old armor  
__Hoping I can clear the way…_


	7. Chapter 7 Optimus Prime

A/N: I know I promised I would update this story faster than I had been. Of course, I made that promise and then came down with the seasonal flu. ::cries:: So this has taken me a bit longer to work on than I would have liked. Still, here's an update and I hope you all like it. :D I found the song "Heaven's not Enough" by Steve Conte and felt that it fit with Optimus better than with any other character. It gives me chills to listen to. I highly recommend checking it out if you get the chance.

On a side note, if you have any suggestions for songs you like/want to see and which character you would like to see them with, please message me. :) I will do my best to work them into the story. Just keep in mind that this is a dark fic, and it's not prone to have many happy moments. I will do what I can.

As always, I do not own Transformers or the song Heaven's Not Enough. Please don't sue. This is purely for fun.

* * *

He could not shake the thought of Laura.

Her name ghosted across his processors, always interrupting subroutines and programs, breathing across his circuitry with each powerful flush of air through his cooling vents. He had purposely fragmented her memory, shoving the pieces beneath barely used and outdated coding databases, just anything to banish her from the forefront of his thoughts. But always she returned to him, and he felt his palms ache with the remembered feel of her skin, the way her tears had fallen against his chest plating when she realized who he truly was.

When she had realized he was not Megatron.

Primus, he could remember with such acute clarity each and every strand of golden hair, the way the substance of her felt for that brief and tiny moment pressed against his spark chamber. It ate at his attention span, overtaking him in moments when he needed to be at his most alert. He could not escape her, unconsciously scanning for her location more times than he would like. And as much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, when he found her heartbeat, that steady thumping pulse of her life, he felt relief wash through his spark.

It was Megatron, he told himself over and over again. He was only feeling what his brother felt, and he would continue to feel it until the brotherbond between them closed again. For now it was open and raw, a wound that bled without spilling a drop of physical life. The loss of so many lives, of so many futures and hopes, poured freely from his side of the bond. Anger and rage, utter contempt poured from Megatron.

But there was that minuscule, almost insignificant portion of worry that escaped his brother's control. He worried for his Laura, and that in turn revived other memories inside Optimus. Memories of regret and helplessness, of a single mission that had taken his femme from his side. Always, these random thoughts of Laura bled into a single solitary pleading for his lost love… his Elita.

_heaven's not enough  
if when you get there…  
just another blue  
and heaven's not enough  
you think you've found it  
and it loses you_

_you've thought of all there is  
but not enough  
and it loses you in a cloud_

If he thought the memory of Laura was a near tactile imagining, it was nothing compared to the memories of his beloved. Elita's rose colored frame blossomed to life behind his optics, the sassy way she would swing her hip plates when she walked past him. Only for him, she would do this. Just as only for him, she accepted that final mission. For she was proud and strong, fierce and loyal and everything that brought out the best in him.

He closed his optics tightly when the memory of her reached out a delicate hand to caress his face. _Primus, no. Not my 'Lita. Not this. Not now. Please, not now._

Optimus excused himself without a word, closing down all internal and external links after transmitting a message of needing extra recharge time. Ironhide and Ratchet, of course, immediately sent messages of concern. These he shoved into a random memory bit for review later. For now, he needed to be alone. He needed to focus on trying to smoother the bond between himself and Megatron before the other drown him in memories.

And after what had happened when Laura had been revived, he did not want to take any chances. He could not afford to offline any human or bot unintentionally, could not allow himself to be overtaken by these borrowed emotions like before. Ratchet had been right. He was not his brother. Laura was not his femme to protect. This, he had to remember and force into every primary circuit he could.

Because he was no longer seeing Laura in his mind's eye, but his Elita. His missing sparkmate. And that pain, more than any other, threatened to snap his ironclad control.

_"there" most everything is nothing  
that it seems  
"where" you see the things you only want to see_

_I'd fly away  
to a higher plane  
to say words I resist  
to float away  
to sigh  
to breathe.... forget_

He was not certain where his feet took him, only that he was away from the main gathering of humans and bots. The stars stretched out above him, the sandy ground of the beach supporting his frame. Waves of ocean water crashed against the coast, the sound somehow soothing and frightening all at once. Elita would have loved it, he mused, laying flat against the sand. She would have delighted in the simplicity of the planet and its organic life. Water in such abundance would have amused her, and no doubt he would have found her in this very spot each and every night when she wasn't on duty.

Her hands reached for him again out of the depths of his memory core, and this time he allowed himself the bittersweet distraction of it. Her face filled his view, the stars above framing her with soft light. What did it matter that these were not the stars that graced Cybertron's sky. What did it matter that the ground beneath was a composite collection of crushed minerals and not the recharge platform of their home. For this moment she was with him, and for this moment, he lost himself to her.

His optics dimmed, his attention turned inward to the remembered tones of her voice. There were mated pairs within their home city that would go eons without speaking a word aloud, preferring much to use their internal comms for everything. Elita had liked the originality of the spoken word, had used it more often than not. And he was ever so thankful of it. For now he had her voice in his databanks, and in moments of weakness like this, he could replay those melodious tones and remember a time when he had known true bliss.

He could forget the mission he had sent her on, the one she had performed with pride. The one she had never returned from… He could forget, and he could remember his personal heaven.

"Elita," he called softly aloud, and sent silently out to the stars. "Elita, my love. If you are still online, hear my call. Come to our new home. Elita. Please, hear me."

_and heaven's not enough  
if when I'm there I don't remember you  
and heaven does enough  
you think you know it  
and it uses you_

_I saw so many things  
but like a dream  
always losing me in a cloud_

"So you _do_ understand."

The words snapped him from his memory, stole Elita from his arms and banished her back into her hiding place within his spark. Anger surfaced before he could restrain it, the rage and pain and sorrow of her loss pouring afresh into his spark. The optics that opened to face his unwanted guest were smoldering dark red. His hands rose, swords subspacing into view.

The person before him should not have been a surprise, given the memories that had taken him, and yet he found himself shocked to see her.

Laura stood on his chest plates, standing right over where his spark was. Her long golden hair was silver in the moonlight, her thin and delicate frame silhouetted by the night sky. Instantly he retracted his swords, thinking only of how he could be frightening the human. The reaction she gave also should not have been a shock to his system, given who had held her captive for years. And still, he found himself puzzled.

She showed no fear. Not so much as a flinch at the look of anger on his face or the sight of his weapons. Her odd skin glowed with a opalescent sheen in the starlight, a testament to the fact that while she may have been human, she was not fully of that species anymore. No human had that quality to their skin. Then again, no human had energon fused to their blood, either.

"You called," she said in that soft whispery voice, sitting down gently on his chest plates. One wispy hand rose to tap against her temple. "I heard you here, in my mind. Like I hear when the Master calls. But unlike him, you understand."

"Understand what?" he rumbled just as softly.

She smiled then, an impish little twist of her lips, and looked up at the night sky. "The reason why the stars burn cold, and, like tears, we cannot ever count them all," her gaze fell back to his. "You understand what dreams cost."

_cause I couldn't cry  
cause I turned away  
couldn't see the score  
didn't know the pain  
of leaving yesterday really far behind_

_in another life  
in another dream  
by a different name  
gave it all away  
for a memory  
and a quiet lie_

Did he, he had to wonder. There was so much of his spark that wanted to deny the words she'd spoken, to dismiss her as a damaged human, her mind lost to insanity in order to survive in Megatron's grasp. But that would be a lie, he knew. He knew indeed why the stars burned cold, and why tears were the one thing in the universe that could not be counted to completion. Because just when one thought they were passed the mourning, that one could move on, the past would rise again in a most unexpected way. The stars coldly illuminated that moment, froze it into one's spark and tore open the grieving process all over again.

_Elita, my love…_

"She can hear you," Laura whispered, turning so that she lay down and curled herself against his spark. Her fingers traced out nonsensical designs against his armor. "Just like the Master can hear me. I can hear you, and so can he. So we know she can hear you when you call to her. "

Optimus let his head fall back against the dunes, his optics focusing on the stars once more. Indeed the stars could coldly illuminate the facts, could bring certain things to life. "You were never his prisoner, were you?"

"Yes, and no."

"You love him?"

"Yes… and no. Does he love me? Yes… and no."

He frowned at that. "Will you go back to him, willingly?"

She tilted her head to the side, staring at him with unblinking eyes. "Will you always call for Elita?"

_and I felt the face  
of a cold tonight  
still don't know the score  
but I know the pain  
of leaving everything really far behind_

_and if I could cry  
and if I could live what truth I did then take me there  
heaven goodbye_

His fingers wove their way around her tiny body, protecting her. A tiny sliver of fear went through him at the thought of this woman going back to his brother. And though he knew it was wrong, that he was imposing his love for Elita onto her, he could not stop what he felt. She felt right in the shelter of his hands, and he realized then that her fingers weren't absently tracing abstract patterns, but were tracing Cybertronian glyphs. His name, Megatron's name, Elita's name, and then her own name in human letters.

"I cannot let you go back to him, Laura."

"You cannot stop what must be, Optimus."

"He will kill you eventually."

She shrugged a shoulder. "I died a long, long time ago. But he is still alive. His spark will die without me. And then you will know the cost of his broken dreams."

_and if I could cry  
and if I could live what truth I did then take me there  
heaven goodbye_


	8. Chapter 8 Laura

A/N: Again, this chapter dances that line between dark and just plain unacceptable. I could have gone into so much more detail with some of these scenes, however I felt that would have wrecked the premise of the story. And personally, I think the implied horror is so much better than detailing out every word of it. So I hope you enjoy this little slice of darkness. The song is titled "Castle Down" by Emilie Autumn. Please enjoy!

I wanted to give a shout out to Razorgaze, my new beta for Transformers stuff. She is an amazing author as well as a beta. Go and check out her wonderful story "Our Debt." It's totally worth it! :D

As ever, I do not own transformers, or the song Castle Down. Both are owned by people with more money than I can ever dream of. Please don't sue. This is only for fun.

* * *

It was all the same, Laura reflected, her feet whisper-silent across the poured concrete floor of the hangar. It didn't matter if she was supposedly basking in the alleged freedom of her Autobot rescuers, or tip-toeing in chains through the Decepticon headquarters. It was all the same. People and bots went about their assigned duties, regarding her with the expressions ranging from fear to outright distrust. The only difference being that here she did not have to dodge and weave to avoid being stepped on.

Other than that, it was just one more cage. Optimus would not let her go, that much was obvious. And in doing so, he brought her more harm than good.

And so she drifted through the base, a ghost made of flesh, her body seemingly ignorant of the fact that her soul wanted it to get with the rest of the program already and just die. But even that was denied her, and she remained a prisoner in so many ways. Trapped on the base, trapped by good intentions, trapped by her newly mended flesh, trapped by her love for her Master… and, as always, trapped by her past.

Some could compare their lives to a journey without end, a road that wound through eternity to mark the years they spent on this planet. She measured her life in cages, a never-ending series of prisons that ran the gambit of emotional to physical and then back again. Entombed forever in her own mind, locked behind a door made of pain and delusions…

… until the Master had found her, and had shown her the key.

_You can see that I swim  
Through the sea of painful  
You have watched as I pull  
Myself from the floor  
And you were there when  
I built my tower like pebbles in the rain  
Trying to balance all that I had left  
With what I didn't have anymore_

_But would you tear my castle down_  
_Stone by stone  
And let the wind run through my windows  
'Til there is nothing left but a battered rose  
Would you tear my castle down  
Stone by stone  
And let the wind run through my windows  
'Til there is nothing left but a battered rose_

She preferred his cage to all the others, and accepted the pain he inflicted with suffering and delight. Only he had found the way to make her physical suffering match the inward pain, had given a sense of balance to her unwanted existence. And no matter how much she begged for the drugs, for the things that had made her life tolerable and combated the nightmares, he would never give in. No, her attention had to be for him and him alone. Exclusive devotion was demanded, for he would accept nothing less.

He would become her world and destroy anything that competed with that goal.

Laura winced at the memory, head falling into her hands as she collapsed to her knees. She could remember the pain and the pleasure, the ice cold numbness granted to her as a reward for serving him well that day. Her fingers bled from the sharp angles of his armor, from the fangs of his mouth plates when she polished and sharpened those cruel bits. He delighted in her suffering, tilting his head ever so slightly this way and that to ensure that her tiny fingers found their way to be pierced and cut on his teeth.

She would tremble and the tears would fall, but never would she utter a sound. Not unless she knew he wanted to hear her cries. Until that one day when she had cried out in her sleep… and her words had not been for him.

That one day changed everything.

Laura could not remember much what had happened after he had shaken her cage. His anger had washed over her like waves of acid, ripping across her skin in his displeasure. She fell to her knees, pressed her face to the bottom of her cage, arms outstretched in supplication to him. He had accused her of failing him, of calling out names other than his. He had not given her permission to speak _any_ name but his.

She had sobbed, begged silently, crawling on her belly towards the door, making the motions he had taught her when she wanted his permission to speak. And when he had granted that request, she had told him of her past and her family, and the nightmares the drugs had kept at bay. She told him how she had fought against those nightmares for him, had gone weeks without sleep, suffering in deprivation out of fear of displeasing him.

All for him. All for the love of him, her cherished Master. But she was human and weak and full of failure.

The rest was a blur. His hand reached for her, clutching her so tightly that she could not breathe. And then the injection, the sweet and putrid rush of the heroine singing into her vein at his hand. The pain vanished, lost in numbness and horrible, terrible emptiness. And then she was pressed against his spark casing, the world silent as the liquid metal molded her to his insides, securing her in the safest place he could.

When she could see again, blood covered her from head to toe and her childhood home was a flat, smoking ruin. There was a knife in her hand, one that had belonged to her mother's kitchen set. And her Master was smiling at her, telling her that the nightmares were over.

And that nothing would ever distract her devotion from him again. For nothing of her former life existed anymore. Not one stick of furniture. Not one molecule of life. He had given her vengeance over the ones that had hurt her so badly, and she would repay that gift with her life. Wrapped in the drug-induced emptiness, she could not bring herself to care either way.

_You seem so devoted  
Your love is unconditional  
You were self-promoted  
I never asked you  
You were my everything  
My apparitional faith  
Where are you when I am screaming to  
My, my, what am I coming to  
_

_But would you tear my castle down_  
_Stone by stone  
And let the wind run through my windows  
'Til there is nothing left but a battered rose  
Would you tear my castle down  
Stone by stone  
And let the wind run through my windows  
'Til there is nothing left but a battered rose_

Ratchet found her there, kneeling on her hands and knees, vomiting until only blood and bile came up. The thrice-damned meddling medic actually picked her up in gentle hands, speaking in his brusque yet soothing tone. Laura's eyes blazed with anger, rage and helplessness, slapping at his grip and kicking for all she was worth.

It was all his fault. He had saved her life. It was all the fault of Optimus Prime for refusing to let her go. Now she had to face these horrible memories without the distracting pain of her Master. Had she really killed her family while he watched? Had she carved them up like autumn pumpkins for his delight? And why should she care? If he had ordered her to do such things, should she not be rejoicing that she had pleased him?

But the lingering doubts began to creep into her too-aware mind, doubts like why he had drugged her in the first place. Would he not want her to remember doing that deed? Would there not be more agony to savor in watching her turn herself inside out with grief? Why would he have drugged her? Why couldn't she _remember_? Why?

"WHY?!" she raged, screaming at the top of her lungs. "Why are you doing this to me? You make me doubt my Master! You make me doubt myself! Why are you doing this? Kill me, you glitch-spawned, stupid Autobot! _KILL ME_!"

Ratchet dared to look down at her with pity in his optics. Pity! She was the favored pet of the Master, and she would have done anything for his favor, for the silence in his depthless red optics. There was nothing to pity in that.

"No," he answered softly. "You do not need death, little one. You need life."

_If I had another place to go  
Would you break me, is it that you know  
I have no choice but to rebuild again  
I'm tied so hard I can't remember when  
I last walked free upon these feet of mine  
But I'll draw the line  
There will come a time  
When I am stronger  
Your words won't hurt any longer  
_

_But would you tear my castle down  
__Stone by stone_  
_And let the wind run through my windows  
'Til there is nothing left but a battered rose  
Would you tear my castle down  
Stone by stone  
And let the wind run through my windows  
'Til there is nothing left but a battered rose_

She felt the familiar sting of an injection needle against her shoulder and the world began to grow dark and fuzzy. "Why?" she pleaded, her voice already beginning to slur. "Why did he make me kill them?"

Ratchet froze in the act of laying her down in a human-sized hospital bed, his optics narrowing. "Who, Laura? Who did you kill?"

"My family," she sobbed, eyelids dropping heavily from the sedative. "Why did he drug me before he made me kill them? They deserved to die for what they did. But why wouldn't he want me to remember it all? Wha.. what would be t-the point… in… that…"

Ratchet shook his head slowly, continuing to place her in the bed and snap in place the restraints around her wrists and ankles gently. "I don't know, little one. But I will find out. You sleep now. We will talk more in the morning."

She heard him start to turn away, though it was like trying to hear a conversation at the opposite end of a long, dark tunnel. He hesitated. "Prime, is there something I can help you with?"

"I'm here for Laura. I heard her distress."

The medic snorted. "No doubt half the base heard her distress. She can be loud when she wants to be."

Optimus made a non-committal sound. "I overheard the last of your conversation. I will take over the investigation into her past."

"Do you think that is wise?"

"No," the Prime answered bluntly, firmly. "But it is something I have to do."

Ratchet growled in frustration. "Optimus, if this is because of your brother-bond with Megatron-"

"No. It has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with what she said to me last night. I will conduct the investigation. You keep her alive."

Through the drugs, she heard him leave and would have laughed wildly and darkly if she could have. Because it was all the same, no matter where she was. Trapped on the base, trapped by good intentions, trapped by her newly mended flesh, trapped by her love for her Master… and, as always, trapped by her past. Entombed within her own mind…

'_Til there is nothing nothing left  
_'_Til there is nothing nothing left_  
'_Til there is nothing left_

_Will you tear my castle down  
Will you tear my castle down  
__Will you tear my castle down…_


	9. Chapter 9 Megatron

A/N: Look, it's a update! LOL. I know I've owed this one for a while now. It was a hard chapter to write, to be honest. Trying to write out the emotions of two very complex characters and then weave them into the story took more time and thought that I realized. Trying to wrap them around this song was even harder. Please forgive me if I got anything wrong here. Hence, a bit of a delay with this posting. Please forgive any issues with this as it hasn't been Beta'ed yet. I know everyone is busy with the holidays and family and the like, so I wasn't going to be pushy with editing. Still, if you get the chance, check out "Our Debt" by Razorgaze (my beta). Her story is awesome and you won't regret reading it. :D

The song this time around is "This Moment" by Distrubed. Normally I shy away from using music on that fandom's soundtrack, however this song was just so fitting to the overall mood of the chapter. I had to include it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers or the song "This Moment." Hasbro has the rights to Transformers. The bad Distrubed as the rights to This Moment. Please do not sue me. This is for fun and I am not making any money from this.

* * *

He had chosen this location with care, the Rocky Mountain peeks high above the fleshling cities giving the perfect venue to what promised to be a most interesting meeting. Cold and isolated, covered with snow and devoid of any kind of complex organic life. It reminded him of the empty hold next to his spark, and how a certain human female should have been protected there. Held there.

Forced to press herself against his spark chamber, to become a temporary part of him.

_His_ Laura…

He could feel Optimus approaching, the tale-tell pulse of his spark like a long-forgotten song suddenly remembered in the back of his mind. It was always that way when dealing with his spark brother, always a game of remembering and hating and hiding that memory over and over again until the next time they met. He did not want to remember the closeness they had shared as mere sparklings, the times that his little brother had made him laugh at his attempts to be noble and strong.

He certainly did NOT want to remember the way he stood up for his younger sibling when faced with a bullying youngling during his first years of training.

And so he buried the memories, fragmented and scattered them to the farthest reaches of his processors. Like he had done with the face of his femme creator, the face of his true mech creator. Useless memories that did nothing more than take up precious processing space. Once he had toyed with the idea of removing that chunk of processor altogether, rid himself of the troubling memories once and for all. But there was not a medic within the universe that he trusted with such a delicate surgery as that.

And even then it would only serve to annoy him in future times, such as now, when his spark remembered the pulse of his brother's… and brought back the hated memories.

_You will remember this moment  
__As you dig into me  
__And from your smile now  
__It seems as if you liked it  
__You'd better cherish this moment  
__As you dig into me  
__You'll never get another chance  
__At this_

_I won't stand another minute  
__Of your questioning me  
__You hear me, bitch, stop  
__The interrogation's over  
__I can't handle the feeling  
__Of you pestering me  
__How would you like  
__To meet my favorite list_

"Optimus," He snarled, watching the other mech transform to his bi-pedal mode. Crimson optics met the sky blue of the other and he could not help the feelings that threatened to override his control. "Where is my slave? I know she lives. Give her to me."

Optimus stiffened at the words, falling quickly into combat stance. One energon sword subspaced into view, and Megatron felt a quick stab of triumph at the way those blue optics started a slow fade to red. So it seemed the feelings in his spark weren't wrong after all. The human he cherished had somehow managed to infect the courageous Autobot leader with this pit-spawned need to keep her.

"She is not your slave, not anymore," the other replied. "I will not allow you to torture her any longer or force her to do things against her will."

Megatron's snarl became a hideous grin. The ball-and-chain flail appeared in his hand, partly a response to the other's sword, and partly to be a comfort. The feel of a weapon somehow grounded him, reminded him of his purpose. "And what do you know about what she has done to please me?"

Optimus never moved, never flinched as the battle mask closed over his features, leaving only those angry eyes to glow within the evening shadows. "Why did you force her to kill her family?"

"Ah, so she told you that much, did she," Megatron mused, swinging the flail as if idly. "Not that it is your business, Prime, but they deserved their fate for what they had done to her. Even your overdeveloped sense of honor would agree."

Optimus watched the wickedly deadly weapon slowly gain momentum with each passive swing. "What do you mean?"

At that Megatron laughed. "She did not tell you the whole story? That sounds like _my_ Laura. Then again, why would she try to relive that pathetic past when I give her such a bright future…"

The flail flew through the air, straight at his brother's head.

_No you can't reneg  
__I love to see you beg_

_I dream this moment as you run away  
__You will only separate me from  
__All I believe this moment  
__In brutality  
__You're the one who kept on pushing  
__Till I made you bleed_

Optimus twisted out of the way, the movement only fast enough to dodge the majority of the blow. Splintered pieces of metal exploded outward from his shoulder armor, the glancing blow sending waves of pain screaming through his circuits. Damage alerts flashed behind his optics, trying to divert his attention to self-preservation instead of the battle ahead. He pushed those aside, acknowledging the damage and pushing his combat programs to the forefront of his processors.

His sword landed a likewise glancing blow across Megatron's abdomen as he completed his spin, and he took a moment to revel as silvery metal glinted in the fading daylight like glitter falling to the earthen floor. "All you offer her is death," he snarled.

"And you think you offer her life?" Megatron roared, his self-loathing need for his human sapping what was left of his patience. It wasn't much to begin with. "How arrogant of you, Prime. You think everyone wants what you want. Tell me, oh champion of the weak, did you even ask her if she wanted your protection?"

The flail met sword this time, the _snap-ring_ of it echoing long after the blow had landed. "After what you have done to her, what you have made her do, she cannot even think for herself."

"Is it freedom you offer when you think for her, or just another form of slavery?" the other countered.

Optimus growled low, reaching forward and grabbing his brother by the throat plating. "She needs help."

"Yes," Megatron surprised him by agreeing. "And the only one that can give her that help is me. I give her purpose!"

"You give her hell!" the other yelled. "You bond her against her will! That is unforgivable, even for you."

Megatron snarled, his other hand transforming into a wicked blade, slicing down at the hand that pinned him at his throat. "No, you unbelievable fool. _She_ bound _me _against my will! And I will claim what is mine. GIVE HER BACK TO ME!"

_It seems your pride has been stolen  
__Since you stood up to me  
__I'll tell you now you know I think I  
__Really like it  
__So learn a lesson from someone  
__Who will never repeat the many  
__Tragic mistakes of his past_

_I hope you savor this moment  
__As you're still on your feet  
__So keep it quiet now  
__I think you're gonna like it  
__Words have consequences when  
__They're spoken to me  
__You better be careful when you're writing checks_

"You know nothing of bonds," Optimus snarled behind his battle mask, releasing his opponent and jumping back out of the way of the energon blade.

Still, the other managed to sink in the tip of the weapon, dragging a gouge of fire down his arm. Optimus blocked the pain relays, pushing them aside as he had the damage reports that screamed from every aspect of his systems. This fight was bad, he knew, and made so much worse by the fact that neither seemed ready to give in this time around. It was quite possibly going to be the battle that decided which of them lived to see the next sunrise.

And all of it over one solitary human woman.

"Oh, on the contrary, Prime, I learned all I know of them from you," Megatron whispered, his deadly-soft voice knifing through the evening air to strike at the other. "Did you ever wonder why I ordered the deaths of all those femmes? Of why I strove so hard to eradicate them from the universe?"

Optimus fell still, a cold chill working its way into his spark that had nothing to do with the frigid air. He remained crouched on the ground, swords at the ready, waiting for the next trick or feint or attack. But some part of him held his attack in reserve, not wanting to hear what Megatron had to say, yet not being able to turn away.

"Why?" He asked, voice barely a whisper threaded through with his own fear.

"You," Megatron spat in answer, clutching his wounded middle. "_You_ were the reason. You and that glitch-spawned _Elita_. Did you think I couldn't feel that bond between you both, that I would not understand it for what it was? How it weakened you, made you foolish and pathetic. And still, for all those weaknesses, I craved that bond for myself. You made me want these femmes to complete my life. My jealousy of you, my hatred of how you could waste all your potential and become a lowly bridge technician! All for the love of _her_! I vowed then and there to never allow such weakness to enter my spark. And there was only one way to ensure that."

The horror of it all threatened to overwhelm him, and Optimus found himself taking a step backward. All those lives, the horrors of the massacres at Iacon and Flotilla… all over the fact that Megatron had seen his bond to Elita-One as a weakness and not as the strength it was.

He stared hard at his brother, watching the fading light of Earth's sun drench him in its rays, painting his silver armor the scarlet color of freshly spilled blood. And yet over that he saw not only the human blood that lay on his hands, but the bright blue of energon, the life's force of his race. So many dead at his hands, all because he was afraid of bonding to one, of sharing his power and his life with another.

"No," he shook his head, optics nearly purple as his rage threatened to overpower his control. "No, you will not blame the deaths of generations on _me_, Megatron. I won't let you."

"You have no say over what I do or do not do," the other stated harshly. "Regardless what you believe, what is done is done. I thought I had that weakness beat. But now, here I am on a fleshing planet and bound to one far weaker than anything I have ever encountered. This is your fault. I blame you!"

_Don't you question how  
__I stand above you_

_I dream this moment as you run away  
__You will only separate me from  
__All I believe this moment  
__In brutality  
__You're the one who kept on pushing  
__Till I made you bleed_

Again they clashed, the colossal amounts of strength held in each other's frame slamming together like boulders. Their punches and kicks, jabs and swings of weapons echoed in the frozen snowy expanse as they collided with their target or slammed into the mountainside. Here and there tiny avalanches formed, their gravely voices like cries of terror, their falling speed like the sound of a thousand different feet fleeing for their sanity.

Fleeing from the two fallen Titans from the heavens, the two immortal beings that battled one another over the life and love of one tiny fragile human.

"YOU WILL GIVE HER TO ME!"

"NEVER!"

Megatron's flail slammed into the mountain again, shattering a chunk loose from the rock wall. It fell against Optimus's shoulder, knocking the Prime slightly off balance. Megatron struck, wrapping the chain of his weapon around the other's neck, dragging Optimus backward and slamming him into the cliff wall.

"Do you love her?" He purred, head tilting to the side as he regarded the other mech, one clawed hand reaching upward and ripping the metal battle mask from his face. "You cannot hide anything from me for long, Optimus. I can see it in your optics. Could it be that my Laura has infected you with this same sickness? Is the reason you keep her from me simply because you want her for yourself?"

Optimus grabbed at the chain around his throat, kicking outward with his leg, an attack the other dodged with ease. "I protect all life," He snarled. "Including hers."

Megatron laughed, the sound slithering around Optimus's spark like something too smooth and too vile at the same time. "You have never fought this hard for a mere human. My Decepticons have taken many human pets before, doing with them as they see fit. And you have never stood up to champion each one of those humans like you do for my Laura," He stepped in closer to his brother, hand grabbing the other's chin plating and jerking his face around to stare at him. "What has she said to you, my brother? Or could it be that you feel through our bond what I felt through yours with Elita? Could it be that you are the jealous one this time? Upset because my femme still lives and wants to come back to me while yours is gone?"

It was a step too far, and Megatron realized that a moment too late. Optimus finally lost his last shreds of control, the image of Elita dancing out of the corner of his eye. He could not let the other stand there and insult his beloved's memory, just as he could not stand there and bear to have Megatron hurl the truth into his face.

A truth he had not wanted to face at all, that he kept Laura with him for reasons other than her own protection. While those reasons were not the ones Megatron had listed, they were still reasons that made him feel a twinge of shame.

"YOU LOVE HER!" Megatron screamed in outrage, gun subspacing into his free hand. He had felt that shift in his brother's emotions, and it had rocked him to his core. "ADMIT IT, PRIME. YOU LOVE HER, BUT SHE DOES NOT LOVE YOU. HER DEVOTION BELONGS TO _ME_! I saved her from the brutality of her family. _I _saved her from the rapes, the drugs and the other pathetic fleshling tortures. NOT YOU!"

The flail chain snapped in half under Optimus's fingers, and he struck out with both fists. Megatron flew back, nearly falling from the cliff shelf to the swirling misty abyss below. "You saved her body," Optimus cried. "But I will save her mind. And you will pay for everything you have done, Megatron. Both to our race and to hers!"

_Now you know the answer  
__Save yourself from danger  
__I cannot forget how all of this began  
__I know you know the answers  
__Save yourself from danger  
__Beaten by a stranger  
__Blood still on his hands_

_I dream this moment as you run away  
__You will only separate me from  
__All I believe this moment  
__In brutality  
__You're the one who kept on pushing  
__Till I made you bleed_

The ferocity of the blows, the sheer malice driving each swing of his brother's mighty fists, was too much for Megatron to handle. For all the hits that he landed against the other, for all the metal that flew from Optimus's armor, he could not stop the juggernaut that was the Prime's anger. He was surrendering ground with each swing of fist, edging closer and closer to the drop off to oblivion that waited below the cliff.

"You fight for her!" He continued to challenge.

"Yes," Optimus replied. "But I also fight for all the others. I will not allow this to continue! Relinquish your claim to this human or die. This is your last chance."

At any other point in his life, he would have done just that. It was only a human, a fragile flesh creature that would die long before he, himself. But this time he could not do it. He would cede the battle to his brother, but he would not cede the victory. He would not give up his Laura. Not now… and not ever. That was a fate worse than death, and though it killed him to admit it, he knew it was true.

He had finally come to love something other than power.

"No," Megatron said suddenly, calmly… and lowered his defenses, letting his weapons transform back into hands. "No, Optimus. I cannot—I _will _not—live without her. And if it will cost me my spark, so be it."

Optimus's fists stopped less than a millimeter from the other's face, his entire frame trembling with the need to strike, to just push him over the edge of the cliff and hopefully to his death. Crimson optics stared into crimson optics, rage pouring into one from the other and back again. And the walls between them, the walls erected from the moment he had chosen to become a Prime and Megatron had chosen to become a Co-Ruler, finally came down. Hatred, denial, sorrow, regret, longing… their sparks had never emptied themselves into each other as they did now, sharing thoughts and ideals too intimate and sacred for words.

Optimus twisted suddenly, slamming his fist as hard as he could into the stone wall behind him.

"You understand," Megatron hissed. "You understand now why I need her."

"Yes," Optimus admitted, his tone suggesting the word was bitter and horrible to speak aloud. He did not bother to turn around. "But you know that I will not agree to this, not so long as there is a spark in my chest."

"This isn't your decision to make."

"It is," Optimus countered, turning at last to face his brother. Optics back to their cool blue shade. "You made it mine when you put her into my care."

"Then our fight isn't over," Megatron growled, leaping into the air and transforming into his jet mode. "I will claim her one way or the other."

"And I will protect her," Optimus called after him. "One way or the other."

_I dream this moment as you run away  
__You will only separate me from  
__All I believe this moment  
__In brutality  
__You're the one who kept on pushing  
__Till I made you bleed_


	10. Chapter 10 Laura

A/N: I wanted to take a quick moment to thank everyone for your support and reviews and for making this story a favorite. All the private messages have given me just a great boost of creative spark. I am beyond joyous that you all love this story as much as I do! ::bounces around in happy circles:: For what started off as a one-shot, this story has grown to have a night of its own. Thank you, thank you, thank you for keeping this story going! :D

As always, I do not own Transformers or the song "Breathe." Hasbro owns Transformers and Superchick owns "Breathe." Please don't sue. This is purely for fun.

* * *

They were staring at her again, all the men and Cybertronians on the base, their eyes calling out the all-too familiar names even if their mouths were not moving. _Freak. Disgusting. Creature. Abomination. Decepticon Whore._ She heard them all, those silent words, felt them reverberating within her ears and her heart as if they had been shouted in her face. They hated her, these humans and Autobots.

They hated her like everyone else had. Everyone save for her Master.

Laura tried to ignore the stares as she paced before the entrance to the Autobot's building, her emotions twisting with mingled fear and helplessness and a simple desire to run screaming from the room. She had felt the argument between Optimus and her Master. Each blow they landed upon each other's metal frame had felt like a thousand fists pummeling her own flesh.

She had fallen to the floor, shrieking at the top of her lungs when the first strike had landed. Uncaring human hands had grasped her flailing limbs, trying to hold her down until Ratchet could reach her. And no matter how many chemicals he pumped into her odd flesh, he could not silence her screams. The pain she had felt radiated through his scans, and yet no source could be found.

Only Laura knew the truth… knew that the pain came not from the physical blows, but from the emotional ones brother scored against brother. Ripping her apart on the inside as cleanly as they cut each other physically. But nothing hurt so much as the feeling of one or the other starting to give up.

For at one point, each of them had left an opening on purpose. Each had secretly hoped the other would fall him there on that secluded mountain cliff.

_Please tell me you'll fight this fight  
__I can't see without your light  
__I need you to breathe into my life  
__Don't tell me this is goodbye  
__I won't grieve – it's not yet time  
__Each breath breathed is keeping hope alive_

_So keep breathing  
__Go on breath in  
__Keep on breathing  
__Go on breathe in  
__Just breathe_

She knew the moment the fight had ended, her body finally stabilizing and giving in to the massive amount of drugs swirling in her veins. Though her flesh was tougher than normal human skin, smoother and carried a very faint metallic sheen to it now, it was still flesh. It surrendered eventually to the siren song of pain-killers and sedatives. And then she laughed inwardly as Ratchet had a mild fit of panic, working as hard to flush the now lethal dose of medicines from her system as he had to inject them in the first place.

His curses were like a sadistic song of pleasure to her shattered heart. IT was right that he was now so concerned about her life, considering he was the one that had nearly destroyed it with his words. The memories kept trying to surface, the knowledge that her Master had given her heroine, had placed the weapon in her hand, and had given her the opportunity to strike at those that had hurt her for so many years of her life. She knew they were dead, burned to ash in the fire that had consumed her old family home.

Her mother was gone. Her stepfather was gone. Her sister and her step-brother, and then her half-brother as well. All dead. All burned to cinders that only DNA could have identified. All this she learned from pretending to sleep in the med-bay while Ratchet and the one called Prowl dug swiftly into the human police files around the world.

Even she knew that Optimus Prime would have their afts for such a complete disobedience of his orders. Had he not stated quite plainly that he would handle the investigation into her supposed murder of her family? And still the nosey medic and his logic-cursed side-kick had gone behind their Prime's back. She didn't understand why, and frankly couldn't care less.

Her Master had said that 'done was done.' One did not live in the past. One strove to conquer the future.

Only… it would have been so much easier to handle if she could remember if she had actually killed them with the knife. It was the one thing she could not remember, and the one thing that caused that tiny voice of doubt to blossom in the back of her mind. Until that moment, she had been devoted to her Master, to his visions of devastation and dominance. She had slaved for him, hoping that one night he would grant mercy and throw her on the fires of his destruction.

Now that tiny voice had come back to life, the one that had abhorred her life and the Master. The one that had secretly rejoiced in the darkness of oblivion when she had arrived here, to be treated by the medic, to be saved from the experiments performed on her by Starscream and the other scientists. But Ratchet had failed, hadn't he?

He hadn't saved her. He'd saved her flesh, but not the core of her being. Not the part of her that welcomed death with open arms. Now that insipid voice called for life… and would not let her give in to the loving arms of death. Inside, she mourned. She begged and pleaded for her Master. For someone to take away the consciousness and strand her back into mindless physical pain from her Master's tasks.

But it wasn't her master that had answered her pleas. It was _someone_ _else_. And that _someone else_ told her to keep breathing. That help was on the way.

_Each breath breathed means we're alive  
__And life means that we can find  
__The reason to keep on getting by  
__And if reasons we can't find  
__We'll make up some to get by  
_'_Til breath by breath we'll  
__Leave this behind_

Now Laura waited for Optimus, unable to sit still, unable to think beyond the need to see him. Others had come to try and offer their false friendships to her, ones like Lennox and Epps and Graham. She saw them for what they were. Men who wanted to take advantage of her body again. Men who had paid heavily to use her at her step-father's whim. She even saw them as the drug-pushers that demanded payment of any kind for the precious liquids and powders that kept the nightmares at bay.

They all wanted to hurt her. Everyone always wanted to hurt her. Only her Master had done so with a purpose outside momentary pleasure.

After her silent rebuffs, they had stopped trying. Lennox had ordered food brought to where she stood pacing. There was a jacket there with it to ward against the evening chill blowing in from off the ocean. Like the food and the water, she had ignored it, preferring the hunger and the sting of the sand carried on that cold wind, letting it scrape over her unprotected flesh. It kept her focused, kept her from giving in to the voice in the back of her mind that told her these people only wanted to help.

For once upon a time she had known help and kindness. Once upon a time she had a real father that had loved her. The briefest flash of a darkly tanned face, of dark brown eyes and a honeyed voice that used to read her fairytales. The tickle of a thick moustache as she had kissed that warm face goodnight, whispering that her love was to the moon and back. He would answer, that gentle and kind face. And she knew safety then.

But that image fed the voice, gave it strength to grow stronger and more insistent. And the louder that voice became, the more that _someone else_ could reach her_. Keep breathing,_ it said over and over again. _Help is coming. Keep breathing. I am coming for you._

She started to cry. For if she had done what they believed her to have done, if she had slaughtered her family in cold blood, then there was no help for her. Only the Master would want her after that. Only the Master would accept her.

Only Death would forgive her.

_So keep breathing  
__Go on breathe in  
__Keep on breathing  
__Go on breathe in  
__Just breathe  
__All you have to do is breathe_

The huge cargo plane landed, touching down with the screech of rubber to asphalt. She was running forward before anyone could stop her, anger filling her body with all the power she would need. He was back. Optimus Prime, the creature that prevented her from being with her Master, the creature that claimed to understand her need to be with the Master, and yet had gone out to destroy him in the next instant, was home.

Her tiny hands balled into fists, her teeth clenched so hard she nearly crushed them into powder. He was going to pay for hurting her Master, for hurting her. For giving her confusion again that only drugs and pain had been able to hide for all those years. Hadn't she been happy as a slave? Hadn't she enjoyed the safety that came from knowing that as long as she pleased, all her needs would be met?

How could he have been so cruel! How could he have taken it away and given her that thrice-damned voice that called to her for freedom and trust.

And yet as he rolled down the ramp, transforming into his bi-pedal form, all the anger fled her body. She saw raw agony on his face, in his optics. She saw him bleeding from so many emotional wounds. She took her satisfaction in that, a sharp and nearly cruel smile on her lips as she stood in his way.

He stared down at her a long moment. "No," he said aloud.

Just that one word. Simple. Eloquent. And damning.

"You owe me," she said in return.

"Ask another price. I will not give you to him. And I will not give you the death you seek."

Laura looked to the side, eyes loosing their focus as she stared at things only visible to her mind. "My death is not in your hands. Nor is my life. Another has claimed it. And I know who that one is now. _She_ comes."

Optimus was down on his hands and knees before anyone could blink, staring down at the human before him as hard as he could. "_She_ comes?"

Laura nodded, and her sharply cruel smile returned. "_She_ comes. And _she_ is wicked pissed."

_All you have to do is breathe  
__Just breathe…_


	11. Chapter 11 Optimus Prime

A/N: I want to apologize for the long wait on some of my stories. I recently lost a good friend of mine and fellow fanfic writer and the loss was much harder than I anticipated. It really stunted whatever creative power I had and left me in a state of much sorrow. It's hard to realize just how much people influence our lives and our passions until they are no longer there. For the next while all my stories are going to be dedicated to her.

**AJ. I will miss you. I will miss you and your laughing encouragement more than I can ever say. This one is for you.**

Special thanks to Razorgaze as my Beta, and Hummergrey for her constant friendship during this sad time. You both render me speechless with your skills, friendship and dedication. Please check out their fics. The links are in my profile page.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OC's. I am not making any money from this. Please do not sue. The song is "Everything Changes" by Staind

* * *

She blazed like a comet across the heavens, scorching her way across the sky and across the expanse of his spark. Terrible beauty and awesome destructiveness scattered in her wake as her form crashed into the earth. He ran in his bi-pedal mode, not wanting to waste the power to transform, to waste the time until he held her in his arms again. His Ariel, his Elita. The name didn't matter so much as the spark that burned in her chamber.

She was here.

She had found him.

Elita… Ariel… home.

_If you just walked away  
__What could I really say?  
__Would it matter anyway?  
__Would it change how you feel?_

_I am the mess you chose  
__The closet you cannot close  
__The devil in you I suppose  
_'_Cause the wounds never heal._

Emotions shattered his spark, disrupting his concentration, cascading in thousands of different memories across his processors. They danced in the corners of his vision, spinning time backward on the cosmic wheel of the universe. Moments when he was simply Orion, a bridge-builder of little consequence, and she simply Ariel, the femme that cherished him regardless of his station. There was love there, tender and simplistic in its power. But all-consuming nonetheless in its strength.

But there were also moments when they fought back to back as Optimus Prime and Elita-One. Carnage and spilled energon, pieces of fallen comrades and hated enemies building up around them as blaster fire lit the night sky, brighter, more terrifying, and as endless as the stars. Moments when he fell to his knees in despair, his spark nearly extinguished under the suffocating weight of loss and a command no sentient being should have been forced to carry.

And always she was there, always loving, always supporting. His Elita… his spark's one great desire, and one great love. The only thing he had allowed himself to feel for eons was that love. And now, after so long apart, after having to give the order that enraged and infuriated her and ultimately separated them, she was mere meters from his arms.

_But everything changes  
__If I could  
__Turn back the years  
__If you could  
__Learn to forgive me  
__Then I could learn to feel_

_Sometimes the things I say  
__In moments of disarray  
__Succumbing to the games we play  
__To make sure that it's real_

The memories mixed and whirled, a bittersweet aria of history made into music as he crossed the ground in quick easy strides. Her spark echoed back that song, pouring her love and loss, her anger and her forgiveness in a torrent that nearly drove him to hands and knees. She loved him still, loved him with all her spark. She was angry with him still, angry beyond her ability to express.

Yearning for his spark in her hands, for the feeling of their coming union.

Yearning for him on his knees with her blaster pointed at that same spark, demanding apology after apology as her finger quivered on the trigger.

_Light of my spark_, she called to him even before her form revealed itself from the entry comet. _Orion, my love, what have you done?_

He crawled the rest of the way to her unfolding form, brushing ice and dirt and other bits of space debris from her face. _Later, my spark's desire. Later, please. Let me hold you. Let my spark know yours before the rest of the universe finds us again. You and I. Just you and I, please…_

Arms he had ached for ever since giving that horrible but necessary order wrapped around his shoulders, optics shining into his. His entire frame shook, need and relief wracking him down to his core. His fingers still fit against her frame, remembering with vivid clarity how she liked to be held, where to hold her against his own body. He jealously, greedily pushed aside the lingering thought that maybe, possibly, his brother felt that way when he held Laura in his claws.

No. No, he would not go there just yet. Not in this moment. Not when he could do little more than allow himself this one, selfish moment of joy in holding his beloved in his arms again.

_But it's not just us anymore, Orion_. Elita spoke into his spark, making it almost impossible to banish the thought. _She can hear us. She knows, and what she knows, I know. Orion, my light, you must let Laura go._

He shook his head violently, hoisting her into his massive arms and turning back towards the base. _I can't._

_Can't, _she answered quietly, _Or won't?_

_But everything changes  
__If I could  
__Turn back the years  
__If you could  
__Learn to forgive me  
__Then I could learn to feel_

_When it's just me and you  
__Who knows what we could do  
__If we can just make it through  
__The toughest part of the day_

He would not answer her, not as he carried her across the tarmac of the base proper, not as he laid her upon the medical berth for Ratchet to examine. His memory core played out all the reasons why he could not honor her request. Sending the human back to Megatron, sending her in as a slave to die bent and broken at his brothers will, was anathema to everything he believed in, to everything that burned in the center of his spark.

But was she really a slave to him, that worrisome part of him asked. Had his brother spoken truth in the fact that Laura had somehow enslaved him?

Impossible. Illogical. And yet… staring into Elita's eyes, he knew that it had to be true. Laura was indeed his slave, but no more so than he was hers. Somehow, against the better part of every bit of knowledge contained in their entire race, Megatron had fallen in love. And the tragedy of that entire sequence of events was the fact that his beloved was human. She would die of natural causes long before he was ready to loose her.

The thoughts cast darkness across the landscape of his mind, clouds of doubt and fear eclipsing the light that her return had shown throughout him. His optics dimmed with uncontrolled sorrow, knowing what would happen when this human woman died. And in that, he found the answer to his beloved's question.

_Light of my spark, I cannot let her go. I cannot risk their bond growing stronger and then her life force ending so soon. If we thought he was the death of our race now, imagine how much more hate will exist in him when she expires? Imagine how his hatred of the human race will exponentially expand? There would be no limits to his rage. It is better than he forgets her now. It is better that they are separated before…_

He could not bring himself to state the word 'Sundering.' He could not imagine the pain as a joined spark was split in two with the death of one part of it. The very thought made his legs tremble, nearly brought him to his knees. Primus, he could not do it. He could not loose Elita, and he could not risk the destruction of the human race all because of the love of one femme.

_Light of my life,_ Elita called gently into his thoughts. _They are already one. Sundering will occur when the spark of life in either is extinguished. None of us are promised our full measure of life. Not the humans in their incredibly shorter spans, and certainly not ourselves. Let her go, Orion. Let them know love while it still exists._

_His love is poison and pain. It cannot do her any good._

The anger returned to his beloved, faster than even he thought possible. And her reply sent him reeling, from both the venom in it and from the ultimate truth in her words.

"_The same could be said about ours…"_

_But everything changes  
__If I could  
__Turn back the years  
__If you could  
__Learn to forgive me  
__Then I could  
__Learn how to feel_

_Then we could  
__Stay here together  
__And we could  
__Conquer the world  
__If we could  
__Say that forever  
__Is just more than a word_

He turned to leave then, unable to stay, to meet the accusatory stare in her lovely optics. His name was Optimus now, and he stood as Prime over the remnant of a dying race. Orion would have given in to whatever Ariel had asked, given freely of love and let fate hand out what it would. But those days were long gone, ripped from him by the very mech he called brother. The darker parts of his spark wanted so much to deny everything Elita had said, if only to make Megatron feel some kind of torment in response to all the evil he had done.

But the whole of him, the mingled parts of Orion and Optimus knew that could never happen. He was not his brother. He would not cause harm just to cause it.

"You are more like him than you realize."

He spun, angry to be interrupted in the middle of his thoughts, angry that this little human had managed to sneak up on him. But most of all, he was angry with himself. "You should not be here."

Laura shrugged a shoulder, acting as if the looming thunder in his voice wasn't intimidating. "Where else would I be? I want to see her."

"She does not want visitors at this time."

The human woman laughed, the sound high and wild. "Oh, yes she does. She just doesn't want to see _you_ right now. And you know _why_."

He stood staring at the doors to the medical facility long after they had closed behind the human. Long after her words had imprinted themselves on his spark…

_If you just walked away  
__What could I really say?  
__And would it matter anyway?  
__It wouldn't change how you feel..._


	12. Chapter 12 Megatron

A/N: This is going to be my standard opening for a while. The pain is still too close. I want to apologize for the long wait on some of my stories. I recently lost a good friend of mine and fellow fanfic writer and the loss was much harder than I anticipated. It really stunted whatever creative power I had and left me in a state of much sorrow. It's hard to realize just how much people influence our lives and our passions until they are no longer there. For the next while all my stories are going to be dedicated to her.

**AJ. I will miss you. I will miss you and your laughing encouragement more than I can ever say. This one is for you.**

Special thanks to Razorgaze as my Beta, and Hummergrey for her constant friendship during this sad time. You both render me speechless with your skills, friendship and dedication. Please check out their fics. The links are in my profile page.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OC's. I am not making any money from this. Please do not sue. The song is "Shame" by Stabbing Westward.

* * *

It had been so long since the last time Megatron had dreamed that at first he could not process what was happening. He saw her coming, a blinding comet that lit up the starless night in colors that defied definition. It was her, his beloved, his sparkmate. His _Laura_. She had found him at last, hearing his call across the expanse of the universe and responding with all speed. The joy that lit up his spark was only slightly tainted by the wriggling little bit of logic that this was somehow wrong.

Laura should not be able to light up the sky with her eternal brilliance. Laura wasn't capable of space flight, at least not on her own…

That thought was shoved away, blocked out by the overwhelming need to hold her in his arms. He needed her, needed to merge his spark with hers like he needed the energon that flowed through his frame. And it had been so long, so brutally long and cold on this journey without her. Necessity had kept them apart. Orders within orders for the good of all had issued from his vocal processor, orders that had them streaking across the galaxy to its opposite ends. But all that was over now, a history that he could finally put to rest.

He would make amends with his Laura. He would beg for her forgiveness and demand the same in return… except…

This wasn't his Laura he was racing across the ground to reach. His Laura was a prisoner of the Autobots, locked behind their fortress of fleshly creatures and complicated useless rules. She called to him constantly, begging to be freed or begging for death. Ever loyal to him, ever yearning for him even as parts of her turned away in disgust. She loved him and hated him as much as he loved and hated her.

_I only see myself reflected in your eyes  
__So all that I believe I am essentially are lies  
__And everything I've hoped to be or ever thought I was  
__Died with your belief in me so who the hell am I?_

_I don't know if I am real without you  
__What is left for me without you?  
__I don't know what's real without you  
__How can I exist without you?_

Still he raced across that revolting organic ground, sounds of repugnance escaping him as it squished between his foot pads, sliding into the creases in his armor plating. He had to reach his beloved, had to feel her spark against his. And when that was complete, when his optics related the fact that she was indeed back at his side, his attention would return to his goals. He would turn this repulsive fleshy planet into a proper paradise for his kind.

Metal would pave the ground as far as the optic could scan. Towers and monuments to his greatness would pierce the sky, and even then his brother would have to admit that he, Supreme Ruler Megatron, was in the right. Optimus would bend knee, and so would all that followed him. And these pathetic, easily breakable humans would find their proper place as the slaves they were meant to be. For after owning a dependable one of his own, he saw the merit in Thundercracker's plan to train them.

Nimble tiny fingers could infiltrate the smallest of gaps and gears, cleaning with a gentleness that brought a rather acceptable level of pleasure. And without the All-Spark to create adequate drones for the work, something had to replace them. A generation or two would be all that it took to crush the rebellion out of the little insects, and those that would not serve would be destroyed, further weeding out the undesirable genetics from the breeding pool.

Yes, once his Laura was at his side, he would conquer all that he desired… except…

Laura wouldn't exist for generations, would never live to see the greatness of his empire brought to reality. Because Laura wasn't one of them. Laura was his _slave, _and somehow, for reasons he would never be able to explain, she was the most precious thing he had ever held. So who was it that he raced so recklessly to find?

_I'm wondering 'round confused  
__Wondering why I try  
__The more that you deny my pain  
__The more it intensifies  
__I pray for someone to ache for me  
__The way I ache for you  
__If you ignore that I'm alive  
__I've nothing to cling to_

_I don't know if I am real without you  
__What is left for me without you?  
__I don't know what's real without you  
__How can I exist without you?_

It wasn't until he saw her that he understood. The pain that rose in him, the fury and outright sense of betrayal was all-consuming. In that moment of revelation, that instant that he knew whose memories he was drifting through as he recharged, it no longer became his dream. He stood apart, a silently trapped observer, as Optimus ran past him. He saw with sickening awareness as the cocoon-like entry comet shifted and transformed, revealing the pink-tinged protoform of Elita-One. All the thoughts of conquest, all his desires, had been twisted bits of Optimus's own thoughts.

It was Optimus that thought of a future free of war, of having humans living side by side with Cybertronian's on this horrible mud-ball of a planet. Except in Optimus's view, the ground was still sopping with organic elements, the humans at his side were allies and not slaves, and the towers that rose to pierce the sky sat side by side with human dwellings.

Optimus would conquer the universe with peace instead of war, with that fragging femme Elita at his side. And Megatron would find himself lost to death, the only way he could find eternity with the femme of his choice. Because he knew his brother would not give him back his Laura. He would possess them both; have all that his spark desired.

The mere thought that Laura's hands would polish his armor or that of his insipid mate, that she would whisper her words to his audio sensors, tell him her fears and desires, was enough to shatter the web of recharging memories.

_I stare into this mirror  
__So tired of this life  
__If only you would speak to me or care that I'm alive  
__Once I swore I would die for you  
__But I never meant it like this  
__I never meant like this  
__No I never meant like this_

_I don't know if I am real without you  
__What is left for me without you?  
__I don't know what's real without you  
__How can I exist without you?_

"LAURA!" he bellowed, optics narrowed and glowing like twin pits of hellfire. "I will find you again, my pet. And I will repay my brother for what he has done."

He was far from defeated, far from ready to surrender his goals to his too-soft brother. And he _would_ exist to force Optimus to bend knee. If all went according to plan, it would be sooner rather than later. The strategy had already begun to solidify in his processors as he left his private rooms in search of Starscream…


	13. Chapter 13 Elita

A/N: I live! Apologies for being gone so long and massive hugs for anyone that is sticking around to read this story. Your reviews have been blessings in the darker times in my life. Seriously, thank you for reading what has got to be a dark and yet beautifully revealing story. I've loved writing this so much. Anyway, I shall be brief and thank my betas Razorgaze and Hummergrey for all their hard work. The song is Hurt by Christina Aguilera. I own nothing but my OCs. Please don't sue. I am not making any money from this.

* * *

She could feel the pain that lanced through his spark at her rejection, and yet could not bring herself to call him back. It would be such a simple thing to reach through that bond, though, would take less than a nanoklik to fill his troubled thoughts with her soft and loving voice. Then he would be back at her side, and one look into those optics she knew as well as her own, and she would be in his arms, willing to forgive him anything.

Which was exactly why she could not reach out to him, to the other half of her spark.

He had to know the pain that his brother felt, had to know what it meant to be kept from the one thing that made him complete. And even knowing how much that was necessary, how vital it was for all involved, Elita could not suppress the dark thoughts that danced across her central processors. Megatron deserved to know this kind of pain, to be robbed of all that made him whole – Optimus clearly didn't. And still it did not erase the knowledge that the one that deserved the least to feel so much pain would feel it the most.

It galled her, that twisted bit of pure logic, twisted her core until she felt the thing would shatter within her chassis. So many lives Megatron had destroyed, so many worlds that now lay barren and covered in the ashes of dead hopes and dreams. And all to feed his unquenchable ambition.

All to feed his revenge against the brother that he felt robbed him of everything.

And yet, wasn't Optimus now doing the same in keeping this human from his brother?

Optimus needed to see that what he did now was only fueling Megatron's hatred, only justifying the deaths of so many sentient beings. In keeping the one bright light of joy from his brother, in his self-righteous desire to simultaneously see human Laura safe and punish Megatron in one fell swoop, he was perpetuating the war he sought so desperately to end. She had come to show him that he was wrong.

She had come to show him, much like Laura had come to show Megatron, that love really could conquer all. Even if pain must pave the way for that love to come through.

_Seems like it was yesterday when I saw your face  
__You told me how proud you were but I walked away  
__If only I knew what I know today_

_I would hold you in my arms  
__I would take the pain away  
__Thank you for all you've done  
__Forgive all your mistakes  
__There's nothing I wouldn't do  
__To hear your voice again  
__Sometimes I wanna call you  
__But I know you won't be there_

_Oh, I'm sorry for blaming you  
__For everything I just couldn't' do  
__And I've hurt myself by hurting you_

Elita offlined her optics, blotted out the image of her dear friends Ratchet and Moonracer as they hovered over her. She turned off the sensors to the areas of her frame that they inspected and prodded in the diagnostic checks and repairs, marveling darkly at the empty numbness that fell in the wake of that offlining. It was much akin to the deadening of a organic nerve ending, the quiet buzz in her processors that let her know that system or this system was no longer functioning not unlike the numbness in that soft tissue.

She didn't like it, that was for certain. No being who had known only war for the past millennium and more liked to have a portion of their systems down and blind. It was… painful… if that was the right word for it. Though she did not have sensations like the humans around her, she still felt it. And sensor blindness in any form was painful.

Like the blocking of her bond with her beloved was a pain so deep it defied definition.

"I know how you feel."

One sapphire-blue optic onlined, the ridge guard rising. The human Laura stood before her, and she knew that girl's appearance shouldn't bother her so much, but it did. The too-perfect flesh that rode Laura's skeletal structure was unnerving, the way it glistened in the light as if the fibers were made of metal and not proteins. The color was off, too, thought that could have been a trick of the light, of the way it played off that golden-hued not-skin. Eyes that should not have belonged to any organic creature peered at her with a violet hue, a blend of Autobot-blue and Decepticon-red, somehow offset by the silver of her hair.

Maybe that was it. The way her hair looked like spun silver, like human Christmas tinsel or the internal wiring of her spark-spires. Regardless, it was not human hair. Not according to all the information she had accessed on the primitive internet web these humans seemed so proud of.

"Somehow I doubt that," she replied, shutting off that optic and the sight of the human/cybertronian hybrid that Megatron had created. Shutting off her own guilt and pain.

"You lie."

Those words were spoken so softly, and yet it sliced through the small bubble of calm Elita had managed to erect around her flailing emotions. "You dare accuse me of speaking falsely to you?"

"No, I say that you are speaking falsely to yourself. You can no more face him and I can face _him_. And because of that, we sit here in stagnation and let those we love suffer."

_Some days I feel broke inside but I won't admit  
__Sometimes I just want to hide cus it's you I miss  
__And it's so hard to say goodbye when it comes to this_

_Would you tell me I was wrong?  
__Would you help me understand?  
__Are you looking down upon me?  
__Are you proud of who I am?  
__There's nothing I wouldn't do  
__To have just one more chance  
__To look into your eyes and see you looking back_

_Oh, I'm sorry for blaming you  
__For everything I just couldn't do  
__And I've hurt myself, Oh…_

"It is necessary," Elita growled. "And I need not explain myself or my personal information to you."

The little human actually tipped her head to the side and smirked. Smirked. At her! "Now you sound like him."

Blue jeweled optics turned purple with rage, nearly matching the orbs in that human's eyes that she found so unnerving. "Like Megatron?" she taunted.

"No, like Optimus," Laura replied, shrugging a slim shoulder. "Though now I suppose there is very little difference between them."

She was suddenly glad of the dead systems within her, of the medical overrides that Ratchet had put in place the moment she'd surrendered control of her frame. Otherwise this little human would have been nothing more than base fluids beneath the pounding of her armored fist. How dare she taunt like this, how dare this insignificant little ball of amino acids and protein molecules call her Prime a monster. For that was what she was implying, that her beloved spark-mate was nothing more than another face for the Destroyer of All Hope.

The smirk grew and grew until a sad and dark chuckle escaped those expressive lips. "Oh, deny it all you want, Mistress Elita, but it's true," Laura whispered, the tone in her voice sounding so much like Megatron's, the way she stood over Elita's face almost identical to what Megatron had done vorns and vorns ago when she had been his prisoner…

… when Megatron had believed that keeping a naïve little Ariel from a young Orion Pax would have swayed him to Megatron's cause.

Her spark dropped in her chest plating, the horror flooding back inside her from where she kept it locked and buried. Megatron had believed that bonding with femmes made mechs weak, that no great strength could come from even a nanoklik of that kind of connection. And so he had chosen Ariel for that little experiment, had taken a newly bonded Orion and forced him apart from his mate. All in the name of saving his brother from a fatal weakness.

Just as Optimus was now attempting to do with the newly bonded Laura and Megatron. Again another parallel, another reenactment of history…

_If I had just one more day  
__I would tell you how much that I've missed you  
__Since you've been away  
__Oh, it's dangerous  
__It's so out of line  
__To try and turn back time_

_I'm sorry for blaming you  
__For everything I just couldn't do  
__And I've hurt myself  
__By hurting you_

"Primus…" Elita breathed, shaken to her core. And deep inside she knew it, hidden away behind the need for action, the split-klik decisions that had fueled her for eons. Optimus, her beloved Prime and the pure joy of her spark, was changing. The war was finally destroying all that he promised to protect.

Blue optics met the violet orbs, and as had happened once before, somehow their thoughts merged. Their feelings became one, spilling over each other in their haste to be explained. They loved their mechs, one with all her spark and the other with a mixed revulsion that defied explanation. They both hated their mechs, both for the actions that they had taken in the past and for the courses they had yet to tread.

"I'm afraid," Laura whispered, climbing into Elita's fingers and folding those metal digits around her. "I don't know what to do now. If there's still anything we can do."

A strange sense of protectiveness swept over Elita as those tiny human fingers clenched around her own, and for a moment she understood completely why Optimus did not want to let her go. This tiny, fragile life, so delicate and imploring her for help… the thought of sending her back to unknown horrors at the hands of Megatron was almost anathema to her primary programming.

But then the femme in her also understood the need to be with a bonded mech. Understood far better than any other creature in the physical universe that Laura had to go back to Megatron.

She. Had. To.

"We will work it out," Elita murmured, and switched to the bond between them when Moonracer came back into the room. _There is always hope, little one. We will find a way to make them see. It's why I came here. _

Laura trembled in her fingers, trying to curl herself into a tiny ball. _You really heard my cries?_

_As loudly as if they were my own. I do not understand how this has happened, or how the four of us can now share a bond, but that doesn't make it any less real. We will find a way to save them._

_Or die trying?_

Elita's face plates took on a grim resolve. "Or die trying." She whispered aloud.

_And I've hurt myself  
__By hurting you…_


	14. Chapter 14 Laura

A/N: This is another _**very dark **_chapter. It deals heavily with drug abuse and murder and a lot of dark things, which one should expect if they are reading a Megatron-centric story. Still, I think it prudent to warn anyone now that might be easily offended. This isn't an easy fic to write (which is why there can be a real long delay between chapters), and I don't think it's that easy to read, either, given the content. I was toying with the idea of changing the rating to Teen, but this chapter totally changed my mind. Please DO NOT READ if these topics offend you. There is a reason this is rated "M."

For those that have enjoyed this story thus far, I am very glad that you can appreciate it for what it is. :D I hope you enjoy this next installment. And thank you so much for the reviews! They make this kind of thing easier to write. :)

FF has made some changes to the symbols it recognizes on a page. I used to use "~*~*~*~" to show a change or a break in the story. That is no longer recognized. So now I use "TRFM TRFM TRFM."

As always, I have much love for my beta Razorgaze. Please read her story. The link can be found in my profile page.

Disclaimer: The song this time around is "You Hurt My Soul" by Doro/Warlock. I do not own that song nor do I own Transformers. I claim only my OCs. Please don't sue. This is purely for fun.

* * *

She was dreaming again, caught in an ever-shifting landscape of memory and madness. People and places, pieces of a past long buried for the sake of sanity—it washed over her with hurricane force, drowning her reality before she ever realized she needed to fight it. It was an odd sense of comfort, that drowning feeling. A knowledge that the fighting was over, that the struggle between what should be done and what she wished to do was no longer necessary.

And so she sank, laughing and inhaling the putrid blackness of her own deeds as if it were the finest of wine.

_Can't find the words  
__How much it hurts  
__Don't know how to cry  
__But like a burning flame  
__I feel all the pain_

_You treat me like a stranger  
__Yet I keep falling in love  
__On and on with you  
__On and on  
__On and on  
__On and on like a fool  
__On and on  
__On and on_

It all played out before her eyes, the clear-headed memory of that one night. She fought it, snarled and clawed like a mad thing, filled her eyes and her heart with red anger as she had seen her Master do so many times before. And still it was not enough, still the night focused tighter and brighter, crystal clear when it should not have been. No memory forged during a drug-induced high that powerful should ever have been that clear.

And yet it was. And all because of that meddling, infuriating medic and his injections. She howled his name in the inky blackness of her water-like memories, cursing his spark, his creation, and everything she could associate with him. She did not want to remember this. She was not meant to remember this.

The Master had seen to that. So why in the known universe did her mind call up that specific memory? Why, in the heart of her first clear-headed moment in what felt like forever, did her mind choose that night?

_Because you need to see it_, **she **whispered. _Because we need to see it, too. Do not fight the memory enhancer, Laura. Let it happen. Let yourself fall. We will catch you. You are not alone._

But **_she_** wasn't the one that Laura wanted to catch her. Slender rose-colored armor on silver palms was not the strength, the unrivaled and magnificent beautiful cruelty of her master's hands.

_You hurt my soul  
__But I can't' let you go  
__I can't let you go  
__Because I love you so  
__Why can't you let go of my soul?_

The house loomed before her, somehow larger than life and two-dimensional. Like a paper cutout standing wafer-thin in the darkening California night. Three-stories of antebellum architecture, the house itself was like something out of Gone with the Wind. Except, of course, the house in _that_ movie had been a treasure, a flourishing delight of culture and elegance filled with the warmth of family. A house worth fighting for. This house, its dark windows like gaping maws into eternity—like black holes that, instead of consuming and crushing the light around them, viciously kept it captive—turned what was once joyous into terrifying hell.

A house worth dying to escape from...

She saw the pain-stakingly restored spiral trim along its eaves, the too-perfect flower beds that lined the crushed marble walkway, the flowers within like inmates of a prison, unnaturally straight and tall, as if forced to assume shapes that only existed in the imagination. The green, green lawn somehow glowed brighter than the finest emerald, no doubt a product of her stepfather's over-fertilizing. Curtains of the lightest and finest damask wafted in a breeze that did not exist, the one wooden wind chime near the dark mahogany double front doors clanging with soundlessness against the stark white marble columns of the porch.

She recoiled within her mind, though her body stood rigidly before the monstrosity, watching as the house appeared to flex and bow ever so faintly, as if the thing were breathing. As if it were waiting… waiting for her to walk through those doors and into unlimited torment.

And just when she thought she could not take anymore, that her sanity would fragment into a thousand million pieces just by staring at the hated place, a shadow loomed over her. It grew and grew until it eclipsed the hell house, until it dwarfed the stillness and the anticipatory hush emanating from within the structure. A new kind of horror rose within her, standing as she was in the umbra of that shadow. This one was cold and numbing, soul-crushing with the certainty that she could never escape it. Unlike the house, whose horror had been displayed in the racing of her heart and the heat that came with it.

No, the shadow of her master had its own terror, it's own bone-chilling cold and soothing destruction that came with knowing that there was nothing she could do to stop him. It was strange how that was somehow comforting, that knowledge that she did not need to fight because she would never win. There was no hope in his darkness, only endless numbness that she was forever _his_.

She loved him for that. She hated him for it.

_You're cold inside  
__A ring of ice  
__The prison of your heart  
__And when I touch your eyes  
__I feel all your lies  
__Waiting for me in the dark_

_You treat me like a stranger  
__Yet I keep falling in love  
__You make me feel  
__You make me feel so blue_

_On and on  
__On and on  
__On and on like a fool  
__On and on  
__On and on_

The shadow of her master twitched, contorted in on itself as he bent down. One clawed, massive hand closed over her, sending spasms of pain across her drug-enhanced nervous system as he lifted her from the ground. The house itself, the source of her fear and nightmares until she had met her Master, creaked and quaked on its foundation, as if it, too, knew something far more dangerous and deadly stood before it.

Those razor-like claws cut thin slices on her exposed arms and legs, drawing forth his tribute from her in blood. She trembled in his palm, head bowed, the revulsion twisting in her gut like hot lead. Revulsion for him, for the Master that hurt and killed. Revulsion for herself, for the fact that she did not know if she trembled from the pain or from the pleasure that bleeding for him brought.

"This is the house," he said softy, his voice rumbling through her memories like thunder.

"Yes, my master."

"And those within have caused you pain?"

"Yes, my master."

She felt his head tip to the side, could almost see in her mind's eye how his crimson optics narrowed. One claw from his free hand moved with unimaginable grace, the barest tip of it sinking slightly into the top of her bare foot. A whimper left her lips, teeth grinding together to hold back the screams as that claw started to slide slowly up her foot, over her ankle, rising ever higher over her shin to her knee. Blood followed in the wake, a perfect crimson line.

She dared not move, not so much as flinch, though the agony was intense. Sharp. But she could not stop the trembling, nor the confusion in her soul. Loving it. Hating it. Wanting him to sink the claw in deeper and bleed her for the last time. Wanting him to take his time and bleed her forever.

Wanting to die. Wanting to live. Wanting… she knew not.

"Did you tremble for the human that hurt you, as you tremble now for me?"

Laura's head snapped up, staring at him with eyes filled with unabashed hatred through the film of pain wrapping around her heart. "No!" she growled out. "Never. I hate him for what he did to me. I hate them all. I would never tremble for them. I would never bleed for him. I—"

Her words cut off in a strangled cry as that claw continued its path over her knee, heading ever upwards to the middle of her thigh where metal met the cotton of her thread-bare jean shorts. Her head was thrown back, the agony plain on her features, her mouth open in a soundless scream. Hands wrapped around one of his claws until they shook with strain, bracing against what he was doing to her. And still that claw remained in her flesh, pressing with an aching slowness until a bead of blood formed around it and ran like tears down her white flesh.

It was a parody of ecstasy, of one lover penetrating another, framed in the truth of torture.

"Do you hate me for what I do to you?" he whispered.

His cruelty and malicious enjoyment slid down her spine with each of his spoken words, her body convulsing with it. "Y-yes," she whispered between gritted teeth. "I h-hate you, m-my Master."

He pulled her in closer, until the heat from his glowing red eyes enveloped her, swallowed her whole. "Do you want me to stop, my pet?"

"N-never," she cried, hating herself for telling him that so truthfully. "Please, I-I beg y-you, m-my master. G-give me more. K-kill m-m-me."

The claw pressed even deeper and she gave voice to the scream she had kept locked inside. Her heart leapt within her, the hope rising that he was finally doing it. That the claw piercing her flesh would slice through the femoral artery and end the nightmare of her existence. However her scream ended in a wail of true sorrow as the claw pulled itself free of her leg and his hauntingly horrible laughter flowed as freely as her blood.

"No," he nearly purred, the pad of one metallic finger sliding up the line of scarlet blood he had traced on her skin, hot and faintly burning as he sealed the wounds he had given her. "No, my Laura. I will not kill you—yet. I will not deprive myself of the one life form on this planet that gives me pleasure, even if I do long to hear your voice in its final seconds, screaming devotion to me even as I take your life."

_You hurt my soul  
__But I can't let you go  
__I can't let you go  
__Because I love you so_

_Because I love you so_

_You hurt my soul  
__Oh no I can't let you go  
__I can't let you go oh no  
__You hurt my soul_

He lowered himself only enough to drop her to the ground without causing permanent damage. She hit hard, the wind knocked from her lungs, and lay there a long moment, feeling the too-green grass against her cheek, smelling the rich scent of imported soil and chemical enhancers that peppered the lawn. But it was only for a moment, and only before the whip-like cord wrapped around her neck, locking itself in place like a collar and yanking her to her feet. She did not need to look up to know it was attached to her master's wrist.

"I will not give you death tonight, my Laura. But I will give you a reward. You have pleased me with your offering of truth and blood," he said, and as if to accentuate the point, he sent a pulse of warmth down the tether, taking pleasure again at the way she jerked in surprise, letting the warmth sink into her weak flesh. "Now, I shall give you a taste of my judgment. These pathetic creatures have harmed what is mine. They have touched the flesh of your body, which is mine. They have hurt your so-called soul and mind, which also belong to me. They will answer for their crimes."

Again, the wind was knocked from her, this time not from a physical source. His words filled her with horror and dread, and her eyes jerked towards the house where she had grown up. Where her mother and stepfather and siblings slept in ignorant peace. Her fingers flew towards the collar, for the first time in months actively fighting against her master, against the shadow that stole all hope.

He peered down at her, eyes narrowing and true anger turning crimson optics darker still. "I see you still have lingering feelings for these creatures. It's true that your heart and mind are not mine completely. Another crime for which they shall be punished. Another punishment for you, my pet. See the price of denying me anything."

He said it so matter-of-factly, as if he were discussing the rising of the sun or the absolutely certainty that he would one day rule the universe. He was going to exact a price from her family, a price for the one tiny bit of love and loyalty she still felt for her mother and her siblings, even though they had done nothing as their stepfather had robbed her of her innocence. The words of denial formed in her throat, her mouth opened to speak—

—and then the warm pulsing energy changed, and tiny barbs extended on the inside of the collar, hair-thin and piercing her skin deeply. And just as suddenly her world started to melt, her vision contorting and running like liquid wax. Her legs gave out beneath her, the grass that was once soft now feeling like knives as the drugs played havoc with her nervous system, heightening her sense of touch to near painful levels. She knew this feeling, knew the rush of heroine probably better than she knew the beating of her own heart.

He'd drugged her, pumped the narcotics into her through the barbs in the collar. And in that act once more stole the hope from her heart and left her in the numbing cold of his shadow. All denial in her fled, all resistance to him gone. The tether connected to her collar snaked around her waist and arms at his urging, tightening and lifting her from the ground.

"Why?" she managed to whisper, every nerve in her body alive and pulsing with the rapid-fire beating of her heart.

"I dislike you in this state," he growled, hoisting her up to dangle before his eyes. "But your human mind is still too fragile to appreciate what I am going to do. In time, I will break you of that fragility; harden your thoughts as I have others in the past. I will shape you until you fit, my Laura. And this is the beginning."

His free hand transformed into the cannon he favored. She felt the ground tremble beneath him as his parts transformed and his feet blasted him upward. Wind whipped her to and fro as she dangled, a broken puppet on its last string. And the entire world exploded into sparks as he took aim at the house of her nightmares and fired…

**~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~ TRFM ~**

"I told you she did not kill her family," Elita said quiety as the last image faded from the monitor.

Ratchet only nodded, his optic guards drawn together in a frown. With a delicacy born of both his programming and that simple, indefinable quality that made him a compassionate doctor, he carefully removed the wire-thin probe from Laura's temple. She stirred on the bed, arms and legs twisting against the restraints as the last of the retrieved memories faded.

"I should not have been able to perform this kind of probe on a human. Their minds do not normally store information like our processors," Ratchet muttered, setting the wire aside and scanning the woman.

"No, you shouldn't have," Elita agreed, crossing her arms over her chest plating. "But she is not a normal human."

"Not anymore," Ratchet agreed darkly, annoyance thick in his tone. "Megatron changed her, somehow. I have yet to figure out how."

"Then I leave her in your care," she replied, striding towards the door. "She's hurting."

"She's not the only one."

Elita froze, glancing up to meet the stare in his optics with a weighty one of her own. "Optimus brought this on himself when he took Laura from his brother," she began angrily, and then looked away. "But I see your point. I will… attempt to talk to him."

Elita strode out of the medical facility, heaviness in her spark, and sought out the mech that was her mate.

_You hurt my soul, but I can't let you go.  
__I can't let you go, cuz I love you so.  
__Can't let go of your soul…_


	15. Chapter 15 Optimus Prime

A/N: I live! I think, at any rate. :P The Muse found me once again, whispering of the dark story that is unfolding here. I apologize for the long absence and hope you enjoy this next chapter. Thank you for sticking with this as long as you have. This chapter is not beta'ed, so any mistakes are mine alone. I still have the list of song suggestions that are sent to me. Each one will make its way into a chapter. Thank you all for carrying enough to suggest songs! :D

Disclaimer: I do not own anything, save for my OCs. The song is "Beloved" by VNV Nation. Please do not sue.

* * *

He had often wondered why his brother had chosen this location for their last meeting. It had offered no strategic value, no special defense, nothing of combat assistance. All things that would have been of significant importance if combat had truly been his intent. Further, it had been very unlike Megatron to select a location where their confrontation would have been kept secret from the human world. No, his brother had a specific love of tormenting and destroying the weak. A fight within a human city the size of, say, Chicago or Los Angeles, would have added the promised delight of many human causalities.

Here, high up in the tallest portion of the Rocky Mountains of North America, had seemed like the wrong choice. Walking these paths again, alone this time, Optimus revised his opinion of his brother's choice of location. Here, he found solitude unlike any other.

It was comforting and spark-breaking all at once, this lonely landscape of rock and snow. The air was far too thin at this altitude to support much in the way of organic life. No birds traveled this high for very long. No human ventured this far north along the slick, ice-covered passes. Even the green plant life of this world could not find purchase in the rocky cliffs and barren soil. It was nothing but minerals and frozen liquid.

It was probably the closest one could find to wastelands of Cybertron while remaining on Earth.

_It's colder than before  
__The seasons took all they had come for  
__Now winter dances here  
__It seems so fitting don't you think?  
__To dress the ground in white and grey_

_It's so quiet I can hear  
__My thoughts touching every second  
__That I spent waiting for you  
__Circumstances afford me  
__No second chance to tell you  
__How much I missed you_

Perhaps that was why Optimus had returned. Perhaps there was a part of him that needed the solitude, craved the silence that came from being surrounded by life and yet not part of it for the moment. Perhaps it was the strange… terseness… of Elita since her arrival on Earth that drove him to the quiet, or the strange sort of bond that had sprung up between his mate and the human called Laura. Perhaps, he was still troubled by the fight that had taken place on this very ledge. Or, more to the point, the revelations that had been flung at him in this very place, slicing him deeper than any weapon ever could.

Optimus frowned, crossing the narrow shelf to the rock wall, blunted fingertips tracing the shattered stone, memory and reality overlapping in his processors.

He saw himself slammed against that wall, heard the vile accusations that his brother had made.

"_Did you ever wonder why I ordered the deaths of all those femmes? Of why I strove so hard to eradicate them from the universe?" Megatron hissed. "You. __**YOU**__ were the reason. You and that glitch-spawned Elita. Did you think I couldn't feel that bond between you both, that I would not understand it for what it was? How it weakened you, made you foolish and pathetic. And still, for all those weaknesses, I craved that bond for myself. You made me want these femmes to complete my life. My jealousy of you, my hatred for how you could waste all your potential and become a lowly bridge technician all for the love of her! I vowed then and there to never allow such weakness to enter my spark. And there was only one way to ensure that…"_

"_NO!" he had bellowed in reply, in his guilt and sorrow and horror and anger. "No, you will not blame the deaths of generations on me, Megatron. I won't let you."_

"No," he whispered aloud, shaking his head. He dropped his hand from the stone, trying to tear his spark away from the pain of those revelations. "I won't let you blame the death of generations on me. I won't let you."

Her footfalls were as delicate as the snow, soundless. And yet he would have known them anywhere, heard them from a galaxy away, felt them eons before they arrived in their intended destination. Her energy enveloped him, washed away the fear and regret and filled his spark with renewed hope. His Elita was there, not two steps away from him, and still he did not turn around. Not here, in this place of shame and dark secrets.

She did not ask him to turn. She did not speak a word. She simply crossed the distance, pressing her helm against the back shoulder plates of his armor, long graceful arms wrapping around his middle. Arms that sported new welds and old scars, hands that could use a plasma cannon as deftly as he could, and yet could cradle and care and love. She was his strength, the core of his perfections and imperfections, the sum of his total.

"Don't let him blame you," she whispered into his spark. "And do not let you blame you. Not for the past, spark of my spark. Or you will doom us all to repeat it in the future."

_My beloved do you know  
__When the warm wind comes again  
__Another year will start to pass  
__And please don't ask me why I'm here  
__Something deeper brought me  
__Than a need to remember_

_We were both young and blessed with wings  
__No heights could keep us from their reach  
__No sacred place we did not soar  
__Still, greater things burn within us  
__I don't regret the choices that I've made  
__I know you feel the same_

Her words cut at him as much as her touched soothed. "Do you think he would do the same here? That he would—"

"Yes," she broke in, tone just as soft as before, and as certain as steel. "He has no use for humans, Optimus. None. Save for one specific human."

He was shaking his head again before he realized it. "You cannot ask this of me, spark of my spark. I cannot give her back to him. He gave her to me to save her life. You did not see the condition she was in before Ratchet saved her. You cannot ask me to send her back to a certain death."

"Will it be a certain death?"

"It will," he answered hotly, turning to cup her face in his hands. "Can you not see it? He destroys anything he perceives as weak. He slaughtered the femmes because he saw our bond as the ultimate betrayal of purpose, the ultimate weakness. And Laura isn't even one of us. She is human."

Her hands cupped his, her optics turning hard. "No, my love. He slaughtered those femmes because he did not understand."

"And you think he does now?"

Almost against his will, his processors pulled up the memory of that fight, shifting through the pieces in a nanoklik until the necessary image filled his vision. Megatron, surrendering ground as Optimus rained blow after blow into his brother. His rage had been so complete, so righteous and consuming. Here, at last, Optimus was going to end the war. Here, at last, he was going to avenge the fallen and save this planet from death the way he had failed to save Cybertron. Every moment of his existence since the war had led up to this final confrontation, here on this alien world. Here, over a human whose lifespan was less than a blink of an optic. Here, it was going to finally end. All the rage, all the sorrow and helplessness fueled his fists like never before.

"_Relinquish your claim to this human or die," _he had demanded._ "This is your last chance."_

And unbelievably, impossibly, Megatron had simply… stopped. His flail hit the stone shelf, dropped from stilled fingers. It could never be said that Megatron ever stooped his shoulders in defeat, and yet there was a tiny almost unperceivable hunch to them as he stood there, staring at the death that was surely coming for him.

"_No,"_ Megatron had said simply, honestly, and without the slightest bit of regret or anger. "_No, Optimus. I cannot—I __**will**__ not—live without her. And if it will cost me my spark, then so be it."_

That memory snapped something deep within Optimus, so much so that his optic guards slid closed, as if that action could erase the memory from time, itself. Elita's hands touched his helm, a delicate caress that ended with the cupping of his face in her palms. She brought her helm forward, standing on the tips of her foot armor to touch his helm with hers. Waves of mingled grief and fear and sorrow welled up in her, echoing his, comforting as much as either of them could give comfort in the wake of such a revelation.

"He knows, spark of my spark," she whispered aloud, voice shaking with those darkly felt emotions. "And now we know he knows. Primus help us, but we do. We cannot keep them apart any longer, or we are just as wrong as he was. We will hurt him just as badly as he hurt us. And we are better than that, Optimus. We are so much better than to sink to his level. This must run its course."

_My beloved do you know  
__How many times I've stared at clouds  
__Thinking that I saw you there  
__These are feelings that do not pass so easily  
__I can't forget what we claimed as ours_

_Moments lost though time remains  
__I am so proud of what we were  
__No pain remains, no feeling  
__Eternity awaits_

_Grant me wings that I might fly  
__My restless soul is longing  
__No pain remains, no feeling  
__Eternity awaits_

"She'll die," Optimus tried again weakly, knowing already that his processors had set their course. "He'll kill her, either in a fit of accidental anger or on purpose. One day, he'll kill her."

"I know," Elita nodded. "And you are right to fear that he will be twice as bad after losing her. Everyone and everything around him will suffer in his grief."

"And he will vent his grief in oceans of human blood. Will we fail here, too, Elita? Will this planet suffer the fate of Cybertron simply because we walked its ground?"

"That I don't know, my love," she answered honestly, looking up into his optics. "But I do know that keeping them apart will destroy us. We cannot become him simply to prevent him from taking actions we aren't exactly sure he will take."

His optics scanned the rocky ground beneath them and beyond that to the green pastures of this organic earth the humans called their home. Shadows moved across that ground, clouds blocking the sun until only white and grey dressed the world around them. Shadows like the one that hung over his spark, heavy with a rain of sorrow yet to be unleashed. Megatron, the destroyer of worlds, would finally pay a terrible price for coming to Earth. He had learned to love in his own dark and twisted way. And soon he would learn grief when that love passed beyond.

It was how Megatron handled both revelations, Optimus realized, that would decide the fate of this world.

"We must convince him not to kill her," he said at last, glancing down at Elita. "We must convince him that she would not want a river of blood as an epitaph when her time comes. He must know that the greatest monument he could give to her is a world full of green life and peace. If we could convince him to spare just this one world, just this one species of sentient life, it would be worth it."

"Break the chain of destruction," Elita murmured, nodding in agreement. "And hope that, by sparing one world, he would spare another and so on and so forth."

"How do we do such a thing? How do we convince Megatron to give up millennia of destruction?"

Elita smiled then, a small smile, and gazed up into her beloved's optics. "Not us, spark of my spark. _She_ must do it. And we must convince her that life is worth living. Otherwise there is no hope for this world. Otherwise, there is no hope for us."

His gaze crossed the snow covered mountains once again, touching on the shadows of the clouds, the white crust of snow on the stone shelf around them. And then it swept out to the human inhabited areas far below, to the lives that went on, oblivious that the fate of their entire world was being decided on that cliff face high above. That it rested in the tiny hands of a human woman who wanted death more than she ever wanted life.

And then he looked down into the optics of his mate, his spark's only desire, and nodded.

_Moments lost though time remains  
__I am so proud of what we were  
__No pain remains, no feeling  
__Eternity awaits_

_Grant me wings that I might fly  
__My restless soul is longing  
__No pain remains, no feeling  
__Eternity awaits_


End file.
